GazzaL wrote: » Just on these 5 priorities:Progress of the disease R0 has been below 1 for weeks. Professor Nolan said that the growth rate of new cases has effectively been zero.Healthcare capacity and resilience Hospital admissions and numbers in ICU have been declining for weeks. Our ICU occupancy is approx 33%, i.e. 66% empty. Based on our ICU capacity prior to COVID-19, it would still only be 50% occupancy. These are good, manageable numbers.Testing and contact tracing capacity The HSE have consistently failed to hit their target of 100,000 tests per week, however it is generally improving. Given the HSEs track record, their failure to hit this target cannot be used as justification to extend the lockdown.Ability to shield and care for at-risk groups We need to do everything possible to support nursing homes, ensuring staff have plentiful supply of the correct PPE and hygiene products.Risk of secondary morbidity due to the restrictions themselves We have been in full lockdown for 5 weeks. Businesses are ready to re-open having put in place social distancing and hygiene measures. If they are not allowed to re-open asap, the number of temporary job losses that become permanent job losses will exponentially increase. Businesses large and small are going to collapse. People can't see their families and friends. They are losing all the things that make life worth living. People either aren't seeking the medical attention they need, A&E departments are deserted, or they are unable to receive treatment, private hospitals are lying empty. We all know that people haven't stopped becoming ill with non-COVID illnesses. There is a serious risk of secondary morbidity either from illness, or mental illness and suicide. Based on those 5 priorities, I can't see any justification to continue this lockdown.
Speakerboxx wrote: » Deaths are still too high and new cases still too high. Expect very little to change tomorrow regarding restrictions.
iamwhoiam wrote: » Is boards at a crawl for everyone or just me ?
KrustyUCC wrote: » Changes will be made every two to four weeks but the Government will intervene if things are going off track and some elements would be reintroduced. Mr Varadkar said he hopes to put the plan before Cabinet tomorrow to be signed off on. He said there were five key priorities to be considered in lifting the restrictions: Progress of the disease Healthcare capacity and resilience Testing and contact tracing capacity Ability to shield and care for at-risk groups Risk of secondary morbidity due to the restrictions themselves
NewRed2 wrote: » God almighty, look first off how do you want someone to prove that people are complying with regulations? Is it a certificate you're after? Now secondly nobody in any nation complies with anything 100%, there's always the 1%, so again, yeah you go looking for proof of something impossible and when that's not provided you win your little argument yeah? That's a wee bit sad imo but you go off and celebrate that little victory if it makes you happy. The rest of us can discuss it like adults. When this all kicked off there was an advantage there for islands like us and also the UK. We could clearly see it all developing and it hadn't arrived on our door-step yet. We're surrounded by sea and had the chance to see it developing in other countries, many of them land-locked and it was an advantage there for us and the UK to stop travel into the country and/or quarantine anyone coming in and that way this never happens here or is easier to control. We didn't. And in fact in the UK they got it even worse, they allowed sporting events to continue and the champions league match between Liverpool and Atleti Madrid brought thousands of Spanish over from a region known to be rife with Covid-19 and allowed them to mingle and spend a few days in Liverpool. Surprise surprise, Liverpool had a massive spike in Covid 19 not long after, larger than most other areas in the uk per capita. If travel had been prevented and the advantage of being an island had been used then UK and Ireland cold have fared so much better but that was warning number 1 ignored. Then in Italy the elderly were being wiped out with this, they have large areas of elderly in some cities there living very close together, but again, warnings were there and ignored again. How are our nursing homes doing lately? Then fine we did our lockdown, we were told we needed to do it to give the HSE time to get prepared. No arguments with that one. Then it got extended. Then it got extended again and guess what, they still haven't got testing up to speed. Meanwhile the public are getting the blame. Or at least we were until some journalists put it up to them that we weren't to blame after all. So look, there's no such thing as 100% compliance but the public have been as close to it as you could wish to get. Lets call it 95% if that suits you, how about the Government and HSE's side of the bargain? I doubt any rational person would give them the same grade over all this. How about letting us go back to work if we can comply with social distancing before it gets to the stage where we have no businesses to go back to and can't support our kids? Some of us are self employed and not having a holiday here. It's not just about saving lives at this stage, it's about not ruining them as well.
Penfailed wrote: » What would be the problem if it was introduced? Would you be upset that our fellas didn't think of it first?
Gael23 wrote: » Reproduction rate is 0.5 so restrictions need to be removed
FishOnABike wrote: » Who is at-risk? When you consider the percentage of the population overweight or obese, with high blood pressure, with asthma, taking immunosuppressive medication ( e.g. lupus, psoriasis or rheumatoid arthritis) and other medical conditions and those people's immediate household and close contacts, the number of people needing to be cocooned would be significant. Cocooning alone would not be practicable. Without some level of restriction CoViD-19 would run rampant through the population. We need to reduce SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in the population to a low level and eliminate any hotspot clusters and through appropriate levels of restrictions, effective monitoring and contact tracing and a rapid response, maintain it at that low level.
drunkmonkey wrote: » If your believe there is 100% compliance with isolating show me your evidence.
kenmm wrote: » What are the chances we will have a suspiciously similar policy announced shortly?
Padraig Mor wrote: » Now I can't speak for every location but as far as I can see the hysteria re 'crowding' in parks etc is wildly exaggerated. The weekend before the current restrictions where we had all this hysteria about crowded parks I and my family went to Farran Forest Park in Cork. If you know it you'll know it has a huge carpark - minimum 100 cars, more even. This was completely full - I'm sure if there was a picture of the carpark on here that weekend the lockdown crew here would be foaming at the moth. But guess what.......there was plenty of space for everyone! It's a bloody forest park! Social distancing easily maintained in virtually all locations except a few brief pinch points - and if you picked it up there I'd suggest doing the Euromillions as the odds of winning that are about the same!
Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: » Well, that's what's what's being asked of everyone at the moment. Either you cocoon the at-risk people, lockdown everyone or just accept the risks. None of this is sustainable until a vaccine is available and even then, theres no guarantee it'll work.
faceman wrote: » Varadkar has given an indirect reference in the Dail today as to when we can expect to be flying again. When quizzed on the refund issue with Ryanair today and went to to say that he would like to see "Ryanair and Aer Lingus back in operation sometime in the summer, sometime in August" I guess that can be used as an expectation
Padraig Mor wrote: » +1. There is no scientific basis whatsoever for the restrictions in their current form to be maintained beyond May 5th. The vast majority of the community have adhered to the restrictions and done what they were asked - we've done amazingly well as a people. We've already been told - what, two weeks ago now? - that community transmission is "virtually zero". The R0 is ~0.5, one of the lowest in Europe if I'm correct. Currently, the virus is not a serious threat to the average person or the community at large. The lockdown as an appropriate response to the threat at the time and did its job. It is now time to begin the process of reducing restrictions. Despite what the lockdown bedwetters here try to claim, this does not mean that those in favour of liberalisation want an immediate end to all restrictions - nothing could be further from the truth. It'll still be quite a while before we're sitting in pubs again, or the elderly are pootling around town. First thing that needs to go is the 2km limit - and not replaced with a 5/10km limit either - and for parks etc to open again. There is no valid reason for me or anyone else not to bring my kids to a forest 10/20/30km away and go for a walk. I know the Nervous Nellies here think that people will catch the virus en masse in parks - well, they're simply wrong - for the most part this is not a disease of the outdoors and you'd want to pretty damn unlucky to pick this up in your average national park anyway, not to mind if social distancing is employed as far as practicable (which of course it should be). Will the infection rate climb with reducing restrictions? More than likely, but the degree of that and its extent are far from clear. Just in case, we need additional overhead in our health service - which we have in spades! We have ~100 patients in ICU with Covid-19 currently. IIRC total surge ICU capacity (according to the HSE consultant on here) in the country is in the order of 1000 beds. Even allowing for non-Covid ICU patients, that's a lot of extra capacity. How many reports have we heard that many hospitals are in large part near empty or very quiet? We have private hospitals being paid €115 million a month to look after public patients - and they're empty or near empty! We have loads of spare capacity in the system to deal with a surge if it comes. Now, I'm sure that'll be misinterpreted by the lockdown fetishists as me justifying going to the pub saying "to hell if others get sick, plenty of hospital space for them". Again, completely wrong - as we reduce restrictions we need to keep our eye on the ball in case things go awry. This is now primarily a disease of nursing homes, long term residential facilities and healthcare facilities and this is where we need to focus our attention. There have been considerable failings by the HSE in dealing with these and I honestly believe that any continuation of the lockdown is an attempt to distract attention from this. To be honest, I'm not quite ready to raise the pitchforks for Holohan yet - I'm sure he and his colleagues did what they thought was best and it's not as if other countries don't have similar problems. The average person did not cause the nursing home outbreaks. We've done what we were asked to do and we've done it well, bringing the virus pretty much to its knees in the community at large. Yet if I want to pop my kids in the car and bring them to the woods for a ramble while maintaining social distancing I'll be turned around by the Gardai if stopped (and there has been a continual checkpoint on the only access to/from my area since Easter) - yet Travellers are allowed break the rules with impunity and with the connivance of Official Ireland? It's time to start relaxing the restrictions. FWIW I'm a microbiologist and have significant responsibility for infection control (incl Covid-19) in a large organisation which includes healthcare settings.
KrustyUCC wrote: » That's not good enough if the government ave only advised people to isolate In Germany 2 people broke lockdown and they were able to closed down the entire apartment complex and test everyone
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