Covid19 Part XVI- 21,983 in ROI (1,339 deaths) 3,881 in NI (404 deaths)(05/05)Read OP

eagle eye · 23-04-2020 10:58AM

seamus wrote:

I do get this, but we also have to consider that what someone says is less important than what they do.

Exactly. Like if our government had shut down much earlier, like anybody with half a brain realised should happen at the time, then we'd have a lit less cases.

seamus wrote:

If this was the UK or the US and he said that, then it's just extra evidence that those at the centre of this are incompetent fools.

We should never be comparing ourselves to leaders of other countries. We have to look at how we are doing. Answer to that is awful.

seamus wrote:

But this has been exceptionally well handled by our government. Harris hasn't been a bumbling idiot, the welfare of people have been put first and foremost above everything else, Harris has played a blinder in this crisis. Which is why he gets a "free pass" for making this mistake.

You must be having a laugh? Or trolling?
Harris has been horrendous as has the whole government.
No quarantine, nobody wearing masks. A joke of a lockdown that's been broken by many.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya! · 23-04-2020 11:02AM

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

You could make that public health argument with pubs too, and does anyone really want to see them all go to the wall?

Maybe not all of them... but I wouldn't mind a decent percentage of them going under tbh!

People worry about the effect on tourism, but it's rather sad if we think our tourism industry is mostly based on pub and drinking culture. Besides there might be a drastically altered tourism sector worldwide after this anyway.

Perhaps all the people who are lacking in imagination, might actually branch out a bit and try some other things in their free time... instead of doing exactly the same thing their parents did, and their parents etc etc... Maybe it's time they evolved and moved on from these tired old unhealthy pastimes! (Probably asking for too much - but you never know!)

yourdeadwright · 23-04-2020 11:03AM

caveat emptor wrote: »

Yeah but these people are putting an even greater burden on the system during this crisis. They should forgo obesity inducing foods until this crisis has abated. It's pure selfishness at this time.

https://twitter.com/DrAseemMalhotra/status/1251023936818688004?s=20

To call a takeaway obesity inducing food is incorrect,
I'm far from obese sit around 12 -10 5 body fat constantly and I enjoy a take away with the family once every 2 weeks,

Should people forgo a bit of Chocolate, alcohol , sweets , Crisps , many many other foods that if ABUSED will make them fat ?

Any carb source you eat can make you fat if you eat to much , Will we call people selfishness for eating any carbs ?

caveat emptor · 23-04-2020 11:05AM

Interesting stat.

Data from the first 2204 patients admitted to 286 NHS ICU’s with COVID- 19 reveal that 72.7% of them were overweight or obese.

Obesity in Irish men increasing at ‘alarming’ rate
Seventy per cent of Irish males are now overweight compared with 52% of females

Might explain some of the difference in mortality between the sexes.

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/obesity-in-irish-men-increasing-at-alarming-rate-1.3610457

seamus · 23-04-2020 11:06AM

polesheep wrote: »

Don't include me in that bit in bold.

To clarify; I definitely wasn't including you in that cohort

My point in that respect is that is that his detractors are focussing entirely on his performance before the crisis, and can't point to any contemporary issue with him.

I don't believe that he suddenly became a good and competent minister with the arrival of Covid-19.

I disagree that he was incompetent beforehand, but I certainly accept that many others have issues with him nd his handling of a number of issues.

As for doing things differently, I have always believed that the focus should have been on the vulnerable rather than a general lockdown. And let's not forget the nursing homes and the failure to protect them.

Without getting into these specific points, I get the impression that you accept that even if these are "mistakes", they were done in the context of a rapidly-changing emergency and decisions were made quickly with the information available on-hand.

In other words; you accept for the most part that he has handled this crisis competently; as well as anyone could be expected.

But you would rather he was removed at the height of this crisis to plug in someone else because you'r woried that he's going to slip up any day now?

Do you not think subbing in an unknown, unproven individual at this point presents a much larger risk than leaving in the person who has done a strong job so far?

And who would it be? There isn't a single individual in the Dail right now with a track record that would indicate any competency for this role.

eagle eye · 23-04-2020 11:07AM

yourdeadwright wrote:

To call a takeaway obesity inducing food is incorrect, I'm far from obese sit around 12 -10 5 body fat constantly and I enjoy a take away with the family once every 2 weeks,

You've got discipline, there's lots of people who eat that crap every day. They are putting huge money in the pockets of those businesses and costing you and me a packet in free health care that these people require after years of eating crap.

yourdeadwright wrote:

Should people forgo a bit of Chocolate, alcohol , sweets , Crisps , many many other foods that if ABUSED will make them fat ?

It's ok in moderation.

yourdeadwright wrote:

Any carb source you eat can make you fat if you eat to much , Will we call people selfishness for eating any carbs ?

You are going overboard, moderation, moderation, moderation.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya! · 23-04-2020 11:08AM

Ray Donovan wrote: »

As of tonight, of any country with over 1,000 confirmed cases of Coronavirus we are:

5th highest in the world of confirmed cases per capita of a million people.

9th highest in the world of deaths per capita of a million people.

You can dress up those figures anyway you like but it doesn't paint a pretty picture for Leo, Simon and Tony.

The inconvenient truth for many around here!

keynes · 23-04-2020 11:09AM

seamus wrote: »

Any criticism of his handling of this crisis is all looney stuff about closing the airports in January, or stockpiling reagent in December.

At least be honest Seamus and don't attack a strawman. Nobody suggested "closing airports in January." It was suggested that it was a bad idea to have (for example) unrestricted and multiple flights each day from Italy during March, while the virus was ravaging that country. The failure to impose checks at that stage was an egregious and unforgivable policy blunder

Mic 1972 · 23-04-2020 11:10AM

we urgently need a separate topic to talk about raising obesity in Ireland :-)

caveat emptor · 23-04-2020 11:10AM

yourdeadwright wrote: »

To call a takeaway obesity inducing food is incorrect,
I'm far from obese sit around 12 -10 5 body fat constantly and I enjoy a take away with the family once every 2 weeks,

Should people forgo a bit of Chocolate, alcohol , sweets , Crisps , many many other foods that if ABUSED will make them fat ?

Any carb source you eat can make you fat if you eat to much , Will we call people selfishness for eating any carbs ?

Did you queue for 2 hours for supermacs? I'm speculating. I didn't go to Cheltenham but I'd say it's odds on that that the average BMI in those cars would be towards the higher reaches of the scale.

I enjoy the odd takeaway too. I'm no adonis like yourself. My body fat percentage is not that fat. Forgive me for using technical terminology.

silverharp · 23-04-2020 11:10AM

Gretas Gonna Get Ya! wrote: »

The inconvenient truth for many around here!

in terms of what?

seamus · 23-04-2020 11:10AM

eagle eye wrote: »

Exactly. Like if our government had shut down much earlier, like anybody with half a brain realised should happen at the time, then we'd have a lit less cases.

If we had a lockdown much earlier, it wouldn't have survived. We'd be an utter mess right now, a bit like Singapore, because we'd have a widespread lockdown that had failed and with it our ability to maintain any control on the spread of the virus. For a week or two we'd have been patting ourselves on the back for keeping a flat line, and then sometime in mid-April our case numbers would be skyrocketing despite the "lockdown".

I sometimes wonder where the people calling for an earlier lockdown have been living all their lives, and how they think a lockdown could have been implemented in Ireland without even the tiniest shred of infrastructure to support it.

wakka12 · 23-04-2020 11:16AM

Deaths remain consistently high in Spain, it has been exactly 40 days since the stay at home order began across the country and all non essential businesses were closed.

Deaths in Spain reached a low on April 16th but have actually been growing every day since then, today marks the 7th day in a row of growth in deaths since that date.

23-04-2020 11:20AM

you couldnt do right for doing wrong for the naysayers in this threat, and in every thread, and on twitter.

all experts and all right and regardless of the information you present or the counterargument you offer they revert right back to their original point immediately

waste of time talking to them, but well worth headlining the actual performance of the country- not the govt, the entire country- using balanced international comparisons.

we're doing very, very well and ive posted the info to show that.

it would be great if the thread stayed half interesting by discussing emerging info and stories and not just rehash of "criticise the govt any way we can"

but we have a cabal that cannot do anything bot

oh sorry, but

Wibbs · 23-04-2020 11:21AM

caveat emptor wrote: »

Interesting stat.

Obesity in Irish men increasing at ‘alarming’ rate
Seventy per cent of Irish males are now overweight compared with 52% of females

Might explain some of the difference in mortality between the sexes.

Could well do. Men are more likely to suffer from sleep apnoea too and that's linked to obesity. Plus men put on fat in different areas. Women more below the waist, men at and above the waist. A big arse isn't interfering with breathing compared to a big belly.

That said it has also been pointed out that the weight curve for Covid19 matches the weight curve for the general population. So if you have say 60% of Covid19 patients are fat, but 60% of the overall population is also fat that could just mean it's attacking people equally regardless of weight. Or if a headline read "Covid19 is killing asthmatics!!. 20% of patients are asthmatic. But if 20% of people in the population are asthmatic it's kinda not. Again if 80% of patients were asthmatics you'd have a pattern(oddly enough asthmatics aren't overrepresented in this dose). It's hard to tease the numbers out.

Maybe look to a western nation where fat people are a minority and see if they're a bigger percentage in covid19 patients. EG if only 20% of your population is fat, but they make up 70% of Covid19 patients then you can think Hmmmm maybe being fat is a factor.

Of course it's going to some factor as fat people are more likely to have comorbidities than thin. In general of course.

yourdeadwright · 23-04-2020 11:21AM

caveat emptor wrote: »

Did you queue for 2 hours for supermacs? I'm speculating. I didn't go to Cheltenham but I'd say it's odds on that that the average BMI in those cars would be towards the higher reaches of the scale.

I enjoy the odd takeaway too. I'm no adonis like yourself. My body fat percentage is not that fat. Forgive me for using technical terminology.

I didn't but id wait for my takeaway if I had to as I really enjoy them its family treat,

Id wager to say most waited for 2 hours not because of there weight but because there is sweet f*ck all else for them to be doing and it was a break from the norm, They where hurting anyone ,

Oh Far from adonis , im not a particular big fella I just like to keep fairly trim if I can,

23-04-2020 11:21AM

Gretas Gonna Get Ya! wrote: »

The inconvenient truth for many around here!

it's been comprehensively refuted and i furthermore followed up by pointing out the basic flaws in your response

its ok to have been wrong, if youre interested in the actual measures theyre still in that tweet i posted

if you arent......readers will draw their own conclusions

seamus · 23-04-2020 11:22AM

keynes wrote: »

At least be honest Seamus and don't attack a strawman. Nobody suggested "closing airports in January." It was suggested that it was a bad idea to have (for example) unrestricted and multiple flights each day from Italy during March, while the virus was ravaging that country. The failure to impose checks at that stage was an egregious and unforgivable policy blunder

I'm glad you brought that up, because cancelling flights coming from another country isn't a competency of the Department of Health, so isn't a criticism of Harris's handling of this. I have seen loonies online claiming that the airports should have been closed in January.

In any case, it's well-documented and argued as to why flights weren't closed, and why "checks at the airport" were basically pointless. Even the countries doing at the time such as China knew it was partially theatre and partially an attempt to do "something" in the face of an unknown quantity. Checking peoples' temperatures at the airport, taking swabs, all pointless.

Given that all of the expert advice at the time was to avoid closing ports and airports completely, it seems like the wrong decision at that time would have been to react to populism.
Indeed, we knew at the time that shutting down travel as a primary measure, like Italy did, turned them into a custerfvck by concentrating efforts in the wrong place.

ek motor · 23-04-2020 11:24AM

On the subject of wearing masks, a few things people may or may not have noticed:

Austria made wearing masks compulsory in supermarkets and public transport on April 6th. New infections dropped 90% after this. (source - Dr. John Campbell's latest video)

Both Slovakia and Czech Republic have made mask-wearing in public compulsory. Both countries have a much lower number of cases and related deaths than ourselves, despite all of these countries being more populous.

23-04-2020 11:25AM

kg703 wrote: »

And let's not forget the nursing homes and the failure to protect them.

When the post mortem is eventually done on this countries efforts to combat covid19, I believe the nursing home issue will destroy reputations that would otherwise have come out shining. It will be a scandal that will drag on and on with enquiries and reports for years until we are sick hearing of it.
The situation in Italy was clear for all to see but somehow no special precautions for nursing homes were taken. 348 people dead so far in nursing homes.

On a different note, I wonder is there any way to get the ball rolling on a rumour that Facebook & WhatsApp are spreading the Coronavirus? Some people will believe anything.

Kermit.de.frog · 23-04-2020 11:25AM

https://twitter.com/business/status/1253267151412178945

Spain reports most new cases and deaths in a week.

4,635 new cases, 440 deaths.

yourdeadwright · 23-04-2020 11:25AM

wakka12 wrote: »

Deaths remain consistently high in Spain, it has been exactly 40 days since the stay at home order began across the country and all non essential businesses were closed.

Iv no idea now and just speculating but how well have the Spanish been listing to advice and was it far to late when there lockdown came,

Not sure why but in Spain they strike me as the type who don't really care to much for rules and regulations, Everything is done at there own slow pace , there very laid back, I sure we have all been to more than one restraunt in Spain that it takes an absolute age to get served or feed ,There just a far more relaxed culture which may have worked against them in this thing,
Again that's not science just my general view of them

23-04-2020 11:26AM

ek motor wrote: »

On the subject of wearing masks, a few things people may or may not have noticed:

Austria made wearing masks compulsory in supermarkets and public transport on April 6th. New infections dropped 90% after this. (source - Dr. John Campbell's latest video)

Both Slovakia and Czech Republic have made mask-wearing in public compulsory. Both countries have a much lower number of cases and related deaths than ourselves, despite all of these countries being more populous.

thats interesting, thanks

is there info on what other measures were taken that would have been having an effect at this time, though?

Drumpot · 23-04-2020 11:32AM

seamus wrote: »

If we had a lockdown much earlier, it wouldn't have survived. We'd be an utter mess right now, a bit like Singapore, because we'd have a widespread lockdown that had failed and with it our ability to maintain any control on the spread of the virus. For a week or two we'd have been patting ourselves on the back for keeping a flat line, and then sometime in mid-April our case numbers would be skyrocketing despite the "lockdown".

I sometimes wonder where the people calling for an earlier lockdown have been living all their lives, and how they think a lockdown could have been implemented in Ireland without even the tiniest shred of infrastructure to support it.

One of the biggest issues I have with our governments response early doors was communication. That wouldn’t of cost much and it was shockingly poor. Copying and pasting a website from the Uk, constantly playing down the risk (technically correct ) and failing to prepare the public. Absolutely no independent thought, just following everybody else’s lead, which isn’t always wrong but starting to properly communicate with a population is not a comitement to anything. I remember even pointing out (think in Feb) about countries who had sent around flyers to all its people about Potential crisis (think it was Germany) years ago and that there was no reason why our government couldn’t use this as an opportunity to do something similar. They eventually got around to it but way too late IMO.

Maybe some people wouldn’t of travelled to sporting events or places where they contacted it. Maybe a lot of people would of been more careful when out. Maybe more would of prepared better, including work wise by having people work from home. In many regards private companies were ahead of our government. Even Fox News, while it was downplaying the virus publicly was privately bringing in protocols to reduce risk within its ranks.

I don’t think now is a time to have a go at the government and have been generally very happy with their response. But before they took action with the parade I think they were terrible. Mind you, I think most countries were terrible , most of us have been reactive, as opposed to proactive.

I think they got a lot right to be fair. Giving themselves 3 months (wage payments) was good to get people on board, reduce chances of looting and give them an opportunity to see how this plays out. We can watch other countries experiment with their populations and hopefully make quicker decisions if their strategies faulter. Their communication with the public has also been great, daily updates from our CMO, different ministers part of the process and selective briefings from our Taoiseach.

I think Leo giving the orders for schools to close, while in USA was brilliant. Would of been more politically safe for him to fly home and make that speech in Irish soil but he made the call as an emergency. I think a lot of people have complained about things that don’t matter purely to score points or because they don’t like FG or they just wants somebody to blame. I defy anybody who thinks our governments to blame for anything everything good/bad , as a country we are all responsible for how our country has handled this crisis. Overall I think we are doing a good job in a scenario where it’s going to be many tragedy’s (like nursing homes and PPE fiasco) no matter how well we handle this.

BorneTobyWilde · 23-04-2020 11:33AM

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10538997/flu-cases-soar-death-toll-intensive-care/

When you see old articles like this, you would imagine that it was here and working it's tragic before we knew, and before it was even known as a new virus

nacho libre · 23-04-2020 11:33AM

Gretas Gonna Get Ya! wrote: »

The inconvenient truth for many around here!

The counter will be graphs can give any impression you want, if the data fed into them is not uniform from the outset.
That's said it's obvious to anyone who isn't a pr spokesperson for FG, or a FG party hack, that they effed up big time with the nursing homes. You can't really describe civil servants and a minister who presided over this as performing strongly.

The excuse of it being an unprecedented and a rapid evolving emergency situation doesn't wash, because we were well into the crisis before it dawned on them that the Nursing homes were a breeding ground for this virus. We could also say that not shutting down all non essential transport in and out of the state far sooner was a big mistake. We don't get a pass for deflecting by pointing to other countries who have been deemed to handle it worse than we did.

BorneTobyWilde · 23-04-2020 11:36AM

Another old article, 77% increase. New York
You telling me that was not Covid, of course it was. It's why New York ended up as it did, it was spreading for two months previous.

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/12/26/flu-nyc-department-of-health-flu-symptoms-flu-shot/

Wibbs · 23-04-2020 11:37AM

seamus wrote: »

I sometimes wonder where the people calling for an earlier lockdown have been living all their lives, and how they think a lockdown could have been implemented in Ireland without even the tiniest shred of infrastructure to support it.

I'd agree on the lockdown aspect. It happened at about the right time all things considered. On the other hand other measures have been handled in a mediocre fashion or not at all. No border checks even now. No options for quarantine even now. Quality and access to testing has been up and down like a whoer's knickers. Contact tracing has been minimal. Sure we did better than the UK, but that turns out not to be a high bar. If we compare ourselves to the Czechs; a landlocked nation, with over double our population and over double our tourist footfall throughout the year and higher density living, who at first screwed up with returning skiers and footy match goers, but got their finger out and are seeing far better results than us.

Observe their number of deaths and compare and contrast.

And their active cases per day.

And look how long their R0 number has been holding steady near 0.

As of the 22nd they've reported 208 deaths, we're nearing 800. With under half their population and much lower population densities. If we compare our numbers to them allowing for population we should be at just around 100 deaths, but we're nearly eight times that and that gap has been getting wider as the weeks go on. If they're massaging their numbers they're doing it by a factor of eight times. If they were leaving half the true deaths out they'd still be way ahead of us.

eagle eye · 23-04-2020 11:37AM

seamus wrote:

If we had a lockdown much earlier, it wouldn't have survived. We'd be an utter mess right now, a bit like Singapore, because we'd have a widespread lockdown that had failed and with it our ability to maintain any control on the spread of the virus. For a week or two we'd have been patting ourselves on the back for keeping a flat line, and then sometime in mid-April our case numbers would be skyrocketing despite the "lockdown".

Going along with any lockdown should be quarantine for anybody coming into the country. We still haven't done that.
Look at Taiwan, there's the example you need or New Zealand.
What did our government do? Oh yeah it's fine to come back from northern Italy and you don't need to worry about self-isolation unless you have symptoms. Or how about all those that went to Cheltenham, just self-isolate when you come back, we know you are all sensible lads because you weren't worried about the risk from going there.
Neither of those things made any sense. Anybody with a bit of cop on and a miniscule amount of intelligence would know that.

seamus wrote:

I sometimes wonder where the people calling for an earlier lockdown have been living all their lives, and how they think a lockdown could have been implemented in Ireland without even the tiniest shred of infrastructure to support it.

Well I don't wonder, I know that there are plenty like you who just don't think. You are either unable to process or unwilling to read all the information available and make best use of said information.
The amount of egregious errors made by this government is unforgivable. And you get plenty of chances to redeem yourself but they haven't taken them.
Look at the Czech Republic who went down the wrong road but then stopped and thought about it and changed course and are now in a very good situation.
It's quite simple really. Quarantine anybody coming in here, state quarantine them.
Everybody wears masks in public. That's to help stop the spread of the infection.
Give the Gardai powers to arrest anybody breaking the rules. Break it twice with no good excuse and you get jail.
The above are moves that would put us in a good place very quickly.

You are talking about herd immunity by the way even though you probably don't even realise it.
And just so you know, we don't have enough information even now on this virus to contemplate herd immunity. There's reports of people being re-infected which means herd immunity isn't possible.

is_that_so · 23-04-2020 11:39AM

nacho libre wrote: »

The counter will be graphs can give any impression you want, if the data fed into them is not uniform from the outset.
That's said it's obvious to anyone who isn't a pr spokesperson for FG, or a FG party hack, that they effed up big time with the nursing homes. You can't really describe civil servants and a minister who presided over this as performing strongly.

The excuse of it being an unprecedented and a rapid evolving emergency situation doesn't wash, because we were well into the crisis before it dawned on them that the Nursing homes were a breeding ground for this virus. We could also say that not shutting down all non essential transport in and out of the state far sooner was a big mistake. We don't get a pass for deflecting by pointing to other countries who have been deemed to handle it worse than we did.

So you didn't get the NEPHT job? Sorry to hear that. At least we can bask in your expert soapboxing!

Covid19 Part XVI- 21,983 in ROI (1,339 deaths) 3,881 in NI (404 deaths)(05/05)Read OP

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