Masks

Kivaro wrote: »

It's odd that the ordinary person in Ireland cannot get a single mask; yet on the news this morning, I'm seeing how masks can be purchased from dispensing machines all over Austria.
The government and HSE have failed miserably here. While the priority should be front line workers, the government and HSE should have forecast this need months ago. Making excuses that we do not need them unless infected is insulting.

Imagine the amount of asymptomatic people walking around the country spreading the infection unnecessarily. Masks, while not the complete solution, could greatly aid in the reduction of the spread.

It's always easier for them to say we don't need them.. They way too busy with making up numbers for covid spread out of the magic hat..
Same attitude with my employer, we don't need masks, hand sanitisers. In the local Centra they even have a big poster hanging at the till saying mask won't protect you..

dublin99

I am at a loss as to how some people still insist that masks are useless.

Look at these places very close to China. Taiwan ignored WHO's advice in January. Promptly imposed quarantine and lockdown. Masks provided for everyone.
382 cases and 6 deaths.
Everyone is back at work and school.

Hong Kong has over 7 million people in an area roughly the same as Leinster. It is extremely densely populated and social distancing is impossible.
They remember SARS and everyone wore a facemask despite the Government initially going with WHO's official lines.
989 cases and 4 deaths.

Ireland reported its first case over a month after Taiwan and Hong Kong. 6074 cases and 235 deaths.

ShineOn7 wrote: »

Christ on a rubber fcuking bike

Think I'll just lock myself away for the next year with the JustEat app (wiping down the food when it arrives of course)

there are elements of this thread that reminds of the doomsday prep community in the US.

iamwhoiam

xhomelezz wrote: »

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/223972131394

Found these on eBay, not surgical mask, but should do too. Bought few of these from different seller when it started. They cover face pretty tight, no gaps. Three layers of fabric on the ones I got, with a pocket for filter.

We made very similar here ourselves, what do you use for a filter ? We use a dried out baby wipe as anything heaver I found very hard to breathe through

dfx- wrote: »

there are elements of this thread that reminds of the doomsday prep community in the US.

Aye, there's no need to go full retard on this. Just sensible precautions that have a basis in good practice and the experience of societies that have handled it better, way better in fact, than we have.

iamwhoiam wrote: »

We made very similar here ourselves, what do you use for a filter ? We use a dried out baby wipe as anything heaver I found very hard to breathe through

I'm actually doing the same as u do. But think even without filter they do the job. If everyone wears them, would make a difference. Every little bit helps. When you put all them bits together, they must slow down the spread significantly. So it's just beyond me, they (government and HSE) are not able to come with simple message and instructions to wear masks, how to make them etc.

Wibbs wrote: »

Aye, there's no need to go full retard on this. Just sensible precautions that have a basis in good practice and the experience of societies that have handled it better, way better in fact, than we have.

there has never been a pandemic like this before and there are too many contributing factors between countries, cultures, populations and the illness itself to identify good or bad.

Wash your hands, stay indoors, listen to the experts, stay away from people, don't touch your face. It's that simple.

The contact tracing was based on close contact for over 15 minutes, not the heavy breathing of a jogger or another shopping aisle going past 10 minutes ago.

xhomelezz wrote: »

So it's just beyond me, they (government and HSE) are not able to come with simple message and instructions to wear masks, how to make them etc.

It's not beyond me X. Not any more. Our leadership has been slow to act and reactive when they did and passed any responsibility for guidelines to the WHO. So when this is over and our half arsed response and deaths way higher than should be expected on the least densely populated western European country(and an island) is examined they can point to anyone but themselves. "We were only following orders".

Pardon my French but incompetent pricks the lot of them. They have been incompetent pricks for years as far as our health service goes and that incompetence didn't go away with the Covid outbreak.

Wibbs wrote: »

It's not beyond me X. Not any more. Our leadership has been slow to act and reactive when they did and passed any responsibility for guidelines to the WHO. So when this is over and our half arsed response and deaths way higher than should be expected on the least densely populated western European country(and an island) is examined they can point to anyone but themselves. "We were only following orders".

Pardon my French but incompetent pricks the lot of them. They have been incompetent pricks for years as far as our health service goes and that incompetence didn't go away with the Covid outbreak.

Politicians should realise one thing, faster they get it under the control, faster they'll be able to start easing up restrictions, so economy will recover faster as well. If they gonna keep doing everything only half way, it will take forever and everyone will be f... If they would just look around and copy from successful countries. But I guess that would be just too easy.

dfx- wrote: »

there has never been a pandemic like this before and there are too many contributing factors between countries, cultures, populations and the illness itself to identify good or bad.

Wash your hands, stay indoors, listen to the experts, stay away from people, don't touch your face. It's that simple.

The contact tracing was based on close contact for over 15 minutes, not the heavy breathing of a jogger or another shopping aisle going past 10 minutes ago.

That's a good advice, but I can't stay at home, my job is essential, so I have to work 6 days a week, with close contacts with other people. So I want to do everything possible to protect myself and protect people I work with. And mask comes as a part of it, anything to reduce the risk being infected or spread infection. What if I'm positive and infect guy I work with, he goes home infect his parents and they end up bad.. For me it's a common sense to do everything to lower the risk.

khalessi

dfx- wrote: »

there has never been a pandemic like this before and there are too many contributing factors between countries, cultures, populations and the illness itself to identify good or bad.

Wash your hands, stay indoors, listen to the experts, stay away from people, don't touch your face. It's that simple.

The contact tracing was based on close contact for over 15 minutes, not the heavy breathing of a jogger or another shopping aisle going past 10 minutes ago.

Nope but they ae starting to realise that heavy breathing of jogger or droplet spread during conversation is just as important and that the distances a sneeze or cough can travel can be up to 28feet

jackofalltrades

dfx- wrote: »

there has never been a pandemic like this before

Wash your hands, stay indoors, listen to the experts, stay away from people, don't touch your face. It's that simple.

And yet there are countries, organisations and people who go against what the experts say and seem to fair better.

xhomelezz wrote: »

That's a good advice, but I can't stay at home, my job is essential, so I have to work 6 days a week, with close contacts with other people. So I want to do everything possible to protect myself and protect people I work with. And mask comes as a part of it, anything to reduce the risk being infected or spread infection. What if I'm positive and infect guy I work with, he goes home infect his parents and they end up bad.. For me it's a common sense to do everything to lower the risk.

Essential workers are a separate conversation to most of this thread. To the extent that NHS workers are living separately to their partners and families and newborns just in case they bring something back home even when they are using full PPE including face shields. That's why everyone else has to stay indoors and follow the rules.

That's a level beyond masks in a shopping centre or on a disinfected bus. But for the vast majority of the population that advice holds.

dfx- wrote: »

there has never been a pandemic like this before

Eh yes there have. We've been living with epidemics for millennia. We've had small scale ones throughout the last century and a few nos so small scale. From 1918 flu, through various nastier than normal flu outbreaks, smallpox, a shed load of tropical outbreaks like ebola, never mind SARS and MERS which were of the same family as this virus. This is not our first rodeo.

and there are too many contributing factors between countries, cultures, populations and the illness itself to identify good or bad.

That's just mostly an excuse not to emulate those societies who have dealt with this far better than we have.

The contact tracing was based on close contact for over 15 minutes, not the heavy breathing of a jogger or another shopping aisle going past 10 minutes ago.

Actually not quite. In the German contact tracing of their first know case they had one person infected because the primary carrier passed them the salt cellar at lunch. Others were just as fleeting. The 15 minutes timing is so vague as to be useless. Does the infection magically become more infectious at 15 minutes and 30 seconds, or less at 14 minutes and 30 seconds? It's also dangerous advice for the stupid among us. Ah shure won't we be graaand if we limit close contact to ten minutes. I have actually heard someone say that D.

Wash your hands, stay indoors, listen to the experts, stay away from people, don't touch your face. It's that simple.

All good save for the part about the experts. The WHO? As "late" as early January they were stating person to person contact wasn't in play to any degree, even though the Chinese were saying it was and were in readiness to lock down a city of eleven million. They took their damned time declaring a pandemic and well after nations in South East Asia were treating it as such. Our "experts"? Like the expert who said it was grand to visit rellies in care homes? The expert who said asymptomatic spread was of very low risk, a month after it was known to be? The experts who did eff all about Cheltenham and the like and have still not set up health checks on our borders? The experts who closed down Paddy's day only after a groundswell of local councils said they weren't going to run it? The experts who only gave the Guards the tools to slow down the movement of morons last week? Those experts? I'll bet the same experts will roll back on mask wearing too, though many weeks, even months too late. Sorry D, I'll keep my own counsel at this stage.

Greentopia

Kivaro wrote: »

It's odd that the ordinary person in Ireland cannot get a single mask; yet on the news this morning, I'm seeing how masks can be purchased from dispensing machines all over Austria.

Which report please?

Kivaro wrote: »

The government and HSE have failed miserably here. While the priority should be front line workers, the government and HSE should have forecast this need months ago. Making excuses that we do not need them unless infected is insulting.

Imagine the amount of asymptomatic people walking around the country spreading the infection unnecessarily. Masks, while not the complete solution, could greatly aid in the reduction of the spread.

Indeed. But we don't tend to do forward planning in this country.

I'm just waiting for the the half arsed exist strategy they'll come up with that will include the (eventual) change of advice to wear masks weeks if not months after the likes of Austria and Czech Republic are handing them out free in supermarkets or in said dispensing machines, regardless of a complete lack of availability of them and never ending promises to have a *pluck overestimated figure from thin air* stock by the "end of the week". :rolleyes:

I may as well ask my other half now to send some over from Germany as soon as production is ramped up enough there and they become mandatory in his state.

Manufacturers like BMW, Bosch and auto parts companies are retooling and quickly turning them out after a draft proposal came from Merkels' office last week about the possibility of widespread use of masks as part of their exit strategy.

Ze Lad is working over the whole Easter weekend in his workshop in Esslingen to machine metal parts for Bosch so this is a runner. Not getting the info from 'Maura on Facebook says'

jackofalltrades wrote: »

And yet there are countries, organisations and people who go against what the experts say and seem to fair better.

We're not going to know for years who is going to fair better so to speak.

Countries could be swapping one crisis for another, mental health conseqences, increase in other preventable deaths by people not presenting at hospitals out of fear or delays in organ transplants or other surgeries. It is known that during the swine flu episode that other deaths increased. There was a report yesterday here in the UK about how non-covid departments are eerily quiet.

A country as big as India might be swapping a virus crisis for a hunger crisis by shutting down [ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52002734 ].

Anyone who tells you [insert country here] has got it right has no idea.

Greentopia

iamwhoiam wrote: »

We made very similar here ourselves, what do you use for a filter ? We use a dried out baby wipe as anything heaver I found very hard to breathe through

Coffee filter maybe?

dfx- wrote: »

We're not going to know for years who is going to fair better so to speak.

Countries could be swapping one crisis for another, mental health conseqences, increase in other preventable deaths by people not presenting at hospitals out of fear or delays in organ transplants or other surgeries.

The faster and more complete lockdowns and other measures like border checks, contact tracing, testing, public hygiene regulations(inc the subject of this thread), distancing etc were in place the faster you come out of lockdown and restart a society. Which in turn leads to far fewer extra crises like mental health etc. The hospitals free up for a start. We're already seeing that in South East Asia.

Wibbs wrote: »

The faster and more complete lockdowns and other measures like border checks, contact tracing, testing, public hygiene regulations(inc the subject of this thread), distancing etc were in place the faster you come out of lockdown and restart a society. Which in turn leads to far fewer extra crises like mental health etc. The hospitals free up for a start. We're already seeing that in South East Asia.

Seeing you guys discuss leads me to believe you are both right in a sense. Sure we could have acted faster like south east asian countries(i.e. border controls, masks etc..), but given that we didn't, what then is the best response?

I'm still not convinced what is; the Sweden model has been disproven yet. I really hope the Imperial College data is right, we're yet to see the explosion in deaths yet that is constantly predicted. I guess we will know alot better soon.

Wibbs wrote: »

Eh yes there have. We've been living with epidemics for millennia. We've had small scale ones throughout the last century and a few nos so small scale. From 1918 flu, through various nastier than normal flu outbreaks, smallpox, a shed load of tropical outbreaks like ebola, never mind SARS and MERS which were of the same family as this virus. This is not our first rodeo.

There has been nothing like this in modern times and the only comparison on a worldwide scale is the Spanish Flu. Nothing in any of our lifetimes.

That's just mostly an excuse not to emulate those societies who have dealt with this far better than we have.

You simply cannot know what was best to do for your set of circumstances until years from now. It actually is a very good reason for following one standard approach instead of every country doing something slightly different - if there was a world health authority for example and everyone followed it, even as it changes.

Actually not quite. In the German contact tracing of their first know case they had one person infected because the primary carrier passed them the salt cellar at lunch. Others were just as fleeting. The 15 minutes timing is so vague as to be useless. Does the infection magically become more infectious at 15 minutes and 30 seconds, or less at 14 minutes and 30 seconds? It's also dangerous advice for the stupid among us. Ah shure won't we be graaand if we limit close contact to ten minutes. I have actually heard someone say that D.

All advice is dangerous to the stupid among us. I saw someone wear a surgical mask in a supermarket yesterday that just covered their mouth and their nose was exposed.

No-one knows, but South Korea has been stated as the gold standard - mass indiscriminate testing and contact tracing. In essence, the pandemic is a failure of testing, not mask wearing. Germany were prepared to test, South Korea were. You can't do contact tracing of a stranger coughing in a supermarket, but they are the gold standard and they are generally held as having it under manageable control.

All good save for the part about the experts. The WHO? As "late" as early January they were stating person to person contact wasn't in play to any degree, even though the Chinese were saying it was and were in readiness to lock down a city of eleven million. They took their damned time declaring a pandemic and well after nations in South East Asia were treating it as such. Our "experts"? Like the expert who said it was grand to visit rellies in care homes? The expert who said asymptomatic spread was of very low risk, a month after it was known to be? The experts who did eff all about Cheltenham and the like and have still not set up health checks on our borders? The experts who closed down Paddy's day only after a groundswell of local councils said they weren't going to run it? The experts who only gave the Guards the tools to slow down the movement of morons last week? Those experts? I'll bet the same experts will roll back on mask wearing too, though many weeks, even months too late. Sorry D, I'll keep my own counsel at this stage.

Can everyone do their own thing so - can I keep my own counsel too and just pick and choose which bits to comply with? Can our neighbours and friends all do something different? Can some shops open if they like it because experts got it wrong about Paddy's Day?

Experts are virologists and epidemiologists who are best placed to interpret the ever-changing nature of the crisis. They might get things wrong, but if we all go our own way, we'll all get things wrong. That is not a better situation to be in.

dfx- wrote: »

There has been nothing like this in modern times and the only comparison on a worldwide scale is the Spanish Flu. Nothing in any of our lifetimes.

South East Asia certainly learned the lessons from previous outbreaks in the last 2 decades that we did not learn. Hopefully our governments will now wake up and be prepared for future virus'.

Scientific literature has been warning about this for decades.

During the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2003, Taiwan was among the worst-hit territories, along with Hong Kong and southern China. More than 150,000 people were quarantined on the island -- 180 kilometers (110 miles) off China's southeastern coast -- and 181 people died.
While SARS now pales in comparison to the current crisis, it sent shockwaves through much of Asia and cast a long shadow over how people responded to future outbreaks. This helped many parts of the region react faster to the current coronavirus outbreak and take the danger more seriously than in other parts of the world, both at a governmental and societal level, with border controls and the wearing of face masks quickly becoming routine as early as January in many areas.

Source

dfx- wrote: »

Can everyone do their own thing so - can I keep my own counsel too and just pick and choose which bits to comply with? Can our neighbours and friends all do something different? Can some shops open if they like it because experts got it wrong about Paddy's Day?

The vast majority of people follow authority. I comply with current Irish authority guidelines, more than many seem to be doing, only because those guidelines make sense and weren't exactly thought up locally off the cuff. If the same authorities told us to do something that made no scientific sense then yes I would ignore them, so long as it didn't endanger others by doingso. I already ignore them on their masks in public advice and on the rare occasions I have to deal with someone one on one because of work I stand more than two metres away from them.

Experts are virologists and epidemiologists who are best placed to interpret the ever-changing nature of the crisis. They might get things wrong, but if we all go our own way, we'll all get things wrong. That is not a better situation to be in.

It wholly depends on the experts and their track record. Our experts' track record has been anything but good and when good lagged behind. How's our testing going? Our near nonexistent contact tracing, our port and entry point health checks? Our non existent quarantine for people coming in here? And too many morons are already going their own way and this I fear will get worse. There are pretty long tailbacks on the roads out of Dublin today and yesterday.

2u2me wrote: »

South East Asia certainly learned the lessons from previous outbreaks in the last 2 decades that we did not learn. Hopefully our governments will now wake up and be prepared for future virus'.

Actually one positive out of this whole crisis is that it's not a particularly deadly virus and it's not affecting the vast majority of the population especially the young. I'm keeping with my original guess/hunch that it'll turn out to be around 05% CFR. If this was as nasty as smallpox, that would be killing 30+% of people from 9 to 90 then we'd see serious gnashing of teeth at the appalling loss of life and lifetime consequences among many who would survive it and the economic fallout so many worry about over Covid would be like a picnic by comparison. At least after this if something truly nasty comes along the hope would be a much faster and more coordinated worldwide response. Though again my guess/hunch is that we won't see similar or worse for many decades. And if we do the mechanisms and the science being revved up over Covid will mitigate it.

2u2me wrote: »

South East Asia certainly learned the lessons from previous outbreaks in the last 2 decades that we did not learn. Hopefully our governments will now wake up and be prepared for future virus'.

Scientific literature has been warning about this for decades.

Source

The last two outbreaks have not had the impact of this virus. Swine Flu killed 20,000 people and one reason for it has been given that older people were immune to it. It hit harder on younger people.

1,000 people died with SARS and the world kept turning.

This outbreak is multiples of that and the world economy has essentially stopped and the asymptomatic people are a bigger problem than anything else.

dfx- wrote: »

Can everyone do their own thing so - can I keep my own counsel too and just pick and choose which bits to comply with? Can our neighbours and friends all do something different? Can some shops open if they like it because experts got it wrong about Paddy's Day?

Experts are virologists and epidemiologists who are best placed to interpret the ever-changing nature of the crisis. They might get things wrong, but if we all go our own way, we'll all get things wrong. That is not a better situation to be in.

No one is suggesting here to wear a mask and stop washing hands.. Think this thread is about to do a bit more apart from what HSE suggest. Which for me is a good thing. At the end it's a airborne virus..

Wibbs wrote: »

The faster and more complete lockdowns and other measures like border checks, contact tracing, testing, public hygiene regulations(inc the subject of this thread), distancing etc were in place the faster you come out of lockdown and restart a society. Which in turn leads to far fewer extra crises like mental health etc. The hospitals free up for a start. We're already seeing that in South East Asia.

And yet Singapore, again credited for their initial reaction, is seeing stringent lockdown restrictions after a huge spike of infections.

Bob24

dfx- wrote: »

Can everyone do their own thing so - can I keep my own counsel too and just pick and choose which bits to comply with? Can our neighbours and friends all do something different? Can some shops open if they like it because experts got it wrong about Paddy's Day?

Where did you see the OP suggesting not to comply with the rules? All he’s saying is that the situation is being poorly handled by our government vs some other countries and that some of the “experts” have been giving poor advice. Wearing a mask even though you are told it is useless because you are questioning that “advice” is not a lack of compliance with any rule, and is very much different from opening a shop which isn’t allowed to open.

Wibbs wrote: »

Actually one positive out of this whole crisis is that it's not a particularly deadly virus

Everywhere I see are guesses, granted from respectable people, of about 1% mortality rate.

This may be true; but we don't know for sure yet. The level of testing is not adequate. The talk of the lag of about 2 weeks in between confirmed cases and deaths means we should have seen the exposion in deaths in the last few days at least.

Take for example China which has 80,000~ approx cases with 3,000 approx deaths. Given that the testing is inadequate one must assume a factor higher actually had the virus. A lot of people are saying a fact of 3x-10x would be about right. meaning it could be 1%-0.3% mortality rate.

If the projections HSE and WHO believe are true then Sweden is going to be a disaster.

I guess the argument can be made that since we don't know we should expect the worst, but shutting down of economies etc.. can have impacts on people's lives as well as already pointed out.

dfx- wrote: »

The last two outbreaks have not had the impact of this virus. Swine Flu killed 20,000 people and one reason for it has been given that older people were immune to it. It hit harder on younger people.

1,000 people died with SARS and the world kept turning.

This outbreak is multiples of that and the world economy has essentially stopped and the asymptomatic people are a bigger problem than anything else.

I'm arguing you can learn the lessons of major crash in a minor crash.

Let's say you have a minor incident on the road in your car. Wouldn't this make you a safer and more aware driver in the future?