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Relaxation of restrictions

Red Alert

Simon Harris curiously made a comment that there was a limit to how long people could put up with extreme level of restrictions as we currently have. Already we’re seeing in Italy that people are starting to get restless. So two big questions:

1) on Easter Sunday, do you think there will be further restrictions, no change with just an extension or some relaxation?

2) what will be the first thing rolled back?

My own guess would be: extension for at least 1 week. Then to allow some businesses like DIY shops to reopen, perhaps allow gatherings of 2/3 people, maybe a token increase on 2km.

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niallo27

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

People in Spain can leave once a day to go to chemist or supermarket, that's all.
Here you can spend all day in a park, groups of teenagers can go to local centra for an energy drink, you can take your kids to the shops, many times a day if you like, you can go jogging, cycling, etc.
Businesses are closed here, and there's a 2km radius supposedly in place which is not adhered to.
There is no lockdown here really.

Absolute horsehit like this annoys me, for the first time in my lifetime, I cannot legally travel anywhere I want in the country, there is **** all open, hundreds of thousands are out of work and people are saying there is no lockdown.

Cyrus

Mic 1972 wrote: »

That's what i call downplaying.
HSE had to reorganized hospitals in order to separate Covid from non-Covid. Train staff, provide for extra masks and protective equipment, plan ahead for the unknown and all you see is overtime?

I asked a question , you are inferring my response.

Thelonious Monk

niallo27 wrote: »

Absolute horsehit like this annoys me, for the first time in my lifetime, I cannot legally travel anywhere I want in the country, there is **** all open, hundreds of thousands are out of work and people are saying there is no lockdown.

Someone said we are the same as Spain apart from you can go for a walk. I was highlighting the differences between here and there.
In Spain they can't leave their homes, we are free to do so, so I don't think lockdown is an appropriate term for what's happening in Ireland now.

Cyrus

Augeo wrote: »

A friends wife is HSE but not a nurse or doctor. In a lab or something traditionally handy. She's doing 6 or 7 day weeks.

He's a computer software validation engineer/consultant and is more or less not working as they've kids.... He's doing Daddy daycare.

Fair enough it was a genuine question despite the other posters response

easypazz

niallo27 wrote: »

Absolute horsehit like this annoys me, for the first time in my lifetime, I cannot legally travel anywhere I want in the country, there is **** all open, hundreds of thousands are out of work and people are saying there is no lockdown.

Shopping has become a frustrating experience, I go as little as possible.

I meet 2 checkpoints in my way and tell the truth to the police.

I go for my 2kM walk.

That is it, other than that wait around the house all day.

I don't see I am not in a lockdown.

lainey_d_123

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Someone said we are the same as Spain apart from you can go for a walk. I was highlighting the differences between here and there.
In Spain they can't leave their homes, we are free to do so, so I don't think lockdown is an appropriate term for what's happening in Ireland now.

You are not 'free' to do so! You can't go and have a picnic in the park, you can't meet up with friends, you can't go to the beach for the day. Almost everything non-essential is closed. You can only leave your house for food, medicine and exercise, which is just like Spain, except for the exercise thing.

What on earth is your obsession with saying this isn't a lockdown? It's ridiculous.

lord quackinton

easypazz wrote: »

Exactly. We have a full lockdown just lack of enforcement.

If the hospitals were at breaking point I would expect enforcement to be tougher.

No exercise would hugely constrain people but could be counter productive.

If we had managed to avoid this getting into nursing homes the numbers would be very low I feel.

What has our numbers so high are a dreadful health system and how dirty and how poorly run alot of our nursing homes are

That’s why the government here went into full lockdown
They knew what was going to happen in nursing homes and they have now muddied the waters

The sheep are drinking the cool aid

easypazz

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Someone said we are the same as Spain apart from you can go for a walk. I was highlighting the differences between here and there.
In Spain they can't leave their homes, we are free to do so, so I don't think lockdown is an appropriate term for what's happening in Ireland now.

We are only allowed leave for essential reasons and exercise.

Same as other places.

Enforcement might be lax but rules are the same.

growleaves

Ask yourself why do all our outdoor spaces resemble giant prison yards?

That's what all the jogging and cycling within 2km is about.

Prisoner's rights groups object to 23-hour lockdown in California prisons, i.e. that convicted murderers only get to walk around for an hour a day.

Yet posters here will complain unless everyone is prevented from getting sunshine, humid air, exercise - all the things a body needs to maintain a robust immune system.

easypazz

growleaves wrote: »

Ask yourself why do all our outdoor spaces resemble giant prison yards?

That's what all the jogging and cycling within 2km is about.

Prisoner's rights group object to 23-hour lockdown in California prisons, i.e. that convicted murderers only get to walk around for an hour a day.

Yet posters here will complain unless everyone is prevented from getting sunshine, humid air, exercise - all the things a body needs to maintain a robust immune system.

People in apartments will understandably walk to the park and sit there.

niallo27

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Someone said we are the same as Spain apart from you can go for a walk. I was highlighting the differences between here and there.
In Spain they can't leave their homes, we are free to do so, so I don't think lockdown is an appropriate term for what's happening in Ireland now.

No you said there was no lockdown here really, do you agree whatever you want to call it, its actually working. The plan was not to overwhelm the hospitals.

growleaves

frillyleaf

Ace2007 wrote: »

Simon Harris said on a personal level he would like to see them open, but said it's the medical professions call on it.

Unless subscribed the articles can’t be read. Information like this shouldn’t be in interviews such as this. It should be clearly communicated and addressed to everyone

frillyleaf

Cork Boy 53 wrote: »

Nothing sensationalist about that at all. If a vaccine is not developed for another 12 to 15 months or so it could quite easily be the case.

Again this is not absolute. If a treatment was found next week or month pubs could open even with limited hours or customers.

easypazz

frillyleaf wrote: »

Unless subscribed the articles can’t be read. Information like this shouldn’t be in interviews such as this. It should be clearly communicated and addressed to everyone

100%

Its either an official communication to the people or its not.

During the election FG "disappeared" him because he was toxic.

frillyleaf

Jim_Hodge wrote: »

Ever hear of buying a newspaper?

He's saying nothing different in that interview to what he has said in other print articles, TV and Radio.

I’m making the point that information like this shouldn’t be communicated in a way that only some people can access it.

Tell me how

frillyleaf wrote: »

Unless subscribed the articles can’t be read. Information like this shouldn’t be in interviews such as this. It should be clearly communicated and addressed to everyone

He did a 12 minute piece on Twitter yesterday evening in which he answered a variety of questions live as they came in.

Newspapers can't be faulted for using paywalls. They have to pay their staff. That world is changing rapidly from what it was and we need to find a way to support it, not let it die out.

easypazz

frillyleaf wrote: »

Again this is not absolute. If a treatment was found next week or month pubs could open even with limited hours or customers.

Pubs will reopen this summer. Its not just pubs, restaurants, hotels, functions like weddings, christmas party nights etc. are all essential to keep hotels in particular viable.

An underground network of house parties will develop anyway, once restrictions are lifted.

Xertz

lord quackinton wrote: »

like of the rest of the lockdown weirdos on here it sounds like you dont have kids
when schools open they will be full
young children are struggling badly with this, they dont understand what is going and cant understand why they cant meet their cousins and go to school or even go to the playground

I've a 5-year-old niece and she's been getting on absolutely fine with this so far. Her parents have just had to step into the crisis and really keep her entertained. She's keeping in touch with her friends with regular video calls. She's been doing online classes, including singing and dance classes. They've been doing school work with her the whole time and all of that and the school (a normal public national school) has been providing phenomenal support and keeping in touch by phone and video chats.

I'm hearing pretty much the same story from most of my friends households too. It's not exactly ideal and it's a bit full on and frustrating, but most people are managing pretty well.

We are stuck with social distancing measures for the short term and even into the medium term and we are going to have to explain to children how those are going to work, but I don't see what the point of rushing back to congregate kids into schools for what might be a few days at most would be.

Things may have changed enormously by September, particularly if some of these repurposed drugs have emerged as viable and you've a scenario where if a kid or family member gets COVID-19 it might be actually treatable without risk of death.

I just think we need to be getting the hierarchy of what's vital to open right and getting it in the correct order from a both a cost and risk vs benefit analysis point of view.

Just because someone wants something right now be it opening schools or the fact that they have a bee in their bonnet about pubs or big events, does not mean that it should happen.

The knock on effect of restarting spread if this is done wrong are absolutely enormous and could have a very significant death toll and huge economic consequences if we reset the block back to the start of the lock down again by making wrong moves.

This needs to be absolutely driven scientifically and cautiously and not based on whims of demands from people who are frustrated with the lock down or who just have a list of wants rather than needs.

In terms of how the disease itself is progressing, we have slowed the spread with social measures but beyond that nothing has changed. We don't have a vaccine. We still don't have drugs that can treat it. If you get it it's still potentially untreatable and the virus is out there in the community.

We've improved testing infrastructure, but that's all really. From a scientific point of view, we are pretty much exactly where we have been for the last couple of months. The only difference is we put in a fire break of a lock down to reduce spread.

This disease spreads exponentially when it breaks out, so if you get a flair up it could go from low numbers to extremely high numbers in a matter of a couple of weeks.

I want to see the lock down move to a pragmatic reopening, but I think we just need to be damn careful about the order we do things in and not just bend to every lobby.

We also need to ensure that when a lockdown lifts in the UK, we don't just import another outbreak. I've so far seen no proposals on how we are going to deal with international travel in either direction. Give it a few weeks and you could well have demands in the US for opening and, given their politics, you could well have infected American passengers arriving in Ireland for example.

I mean what happens if Trump gets his way on this or certain US states throw caution to the wind and just throw everything open and you've endemic COVID-19 and those people start landing here for business trips or tourism in the next couple of months? That's quite a plausible scenario.

We really need a lot of detailed work on what activities are high, medium and low risk and we need to work our way from low to high over the weeks and months ahead and not jump the gun or overlook things.

easypazz

Tell me how wrote: »

He did a 12 minute piece on Twitter yesterday evening in which he answered a variety of questions live as they came in.

Good for twitter. How about he posts a transcript of his full interview and his twitter interview on the official website so people can see everything he said, rather than the bits the media use to sell copy.

frillyleaf

easypazz wrote: »

100%

Its either an official communication to the people or its not.

During the election FG "disappeared" him because he was toxic.

Yes, this isn’t some sort of celebrity interview. This type of communication causes confusion in my opinion.

Hearty80

easypazz wrote: »

Pubs will reopen this summer. Its not just pubs, restaurants, hotels, functions like weddings, christmas party nights etc. are all essential to keep hotels in particular viable.

An underground network of house parties will develop anyway, once restrictions are lifted.

Absolutely, people who live on my road had a party last Saturday night, mainly family who all live at different addresses. There neighbour is a guard, when asked by another neighbour he just shrugged his shoulders and said unless there causing a disturbance they don't intervene.

Tell me how

easypazz wrote: »

Good for twitter. How about he posts a transcript of his full interview and his twitter interview on the official website so people can see everything he said, rather than the bits the media use to sell copy.

Christ.

You don't seem to know how twitter works.

frillyleaf

Tell me how wrote: »

He did a 12 minute piece on Twitter yesterday evening in which he answered a variety of questions live as they came in.

Newspapers can't be faulted for using paywalls. They have to pay their staff. That world is changing rapidly from what it was and we need to find a way to support it, not let it die out.

I’m not faulting newspapers for using paywalls, you’ve missed my point.

My point is certain communication- eg communication during a pandemic from our health minister - should not be limited to people who pay.

Tell me how

frillyleaf wrote: »

I’m not faulting newspapers for using paywalls, you’ve missed my point.

My point is certain communication- eg communication during a pandemic from our health minister - should not be limited to people who pay.

They're not.
He answered questions on this topic, amongst others, on the free app, Twitter.
Not to mention the frequent briefings which are broadcast on VM and RTE.

Viscount Aggro

There are loads of people out driving today.
I think a lot of people have made their decision on what the lockdown means.
The Royal Canal footpath was packed with people.

easypazz

Tell me how wrote: »

Christ.

You don't seem to know how twitter works.

I shouldn't have to.

If the minister for health is making statements then they should be transparently available on as many channels as possible.

In particular gov.ie

growleaves

From a scientific point of view, we are pretty much exactly where we have been for the last couple of months.

False. The models on which restrictions were based turned out to be objectively wrong and were revised downwards.

As well as that, recent research from virologists has shown that the disease is far less infectious than was assumed.

So we aren't pretty much exactly where we have been for the last couple of months, from a scientific point of view. We're pretty much exactly somewhere entirely different.

Ms2011

khalessi wrote: »

Averages always make things look better then they are. We have classes of Junior infants with 32 chidren in them

My son has 9 kids in his class Junior Infancts to 2nd class.
There's 10 in the older class 3rd to 6th class, I wonder could small schools like this start opening first.

Xertz

frillyleaf wrote: »

I’m not faulting newspapers for using paywalls, you’ve missed my point.

My point is certain communication- eg communication during a pandemic from our health minister - should not be limited to people who pay.

Sorry for going slightly OT here, but, in general newspapers have always been purchased. It's not like you can just walk into your local shop and pick up a copy of the Sunday Business Post or the Sunday Independent and walk out the door with it without paying.

You're generally paying for their opinion and analysis, not just for access to raw press statements and there's widespread public availability through free-to-air public service TV i.e. RTE and Virgin Media is Free to Air and then you've lots of reasonably good quality online content available e.g. RTE.ie, IrishExaminer.com, Brakingnews.ie, independent.ie (most of it), and of course thejournal.ie and plenty of other that are totally free to read.

ALL Irish government press statements, press releases, speeches, policy documents, information packs etc etc are available directly from source online. Just go to https://merrionstreet.ie/ or www.gov.ie and you'll find any of them.

RTE actually has a statutory role as a public service broadcaster in ensuring access to information too and every licensed broadcaster has some degree of requirement to do news and current affairs for free (quite a lot by international standards)

I think the subscription models some of the traditional newspapers are using are using are FAR, FAR too expensive and I can't understand why more papers aren't using the likes of Apple Pay and Google Pay, PayPal etc etc to let people just quickly purchase a copy of a single edition or coming in with pricing of about €10/month.

Most of them are trying to get subscriptions for secure cashflow but in a lot of cases they're simply way too expensive, given they're significantly more than the cost of say Netflix or Spotify per month.

I'd say we'll have a complete cull of the number of papers we have in Ireland in the coming months (major drying up of advertising going on) as many of them really have not adapted to the online world and even all these years into 'new media' they still treated it as a niche, extra channel and failed to make it pay. It's not unique to Ireland, but I think we are going to see a rather changed media market by 2021.