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Off Topic Thread 5.0

[Deleted User]

Thread continued from here https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057835955&page=250

The usual rules apply. Non-rugby talk here. Consider this a social place, but like a pub, things like religion and politics can be divisive, so don't say things here you wouldn't say to someone's face in the pub. Sober

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gp1990

Clegg wrote: »

There's a few spots along Camden Street that may be able to successfully implement social/physical distancing. Camden Exchange is a fairly open pub that has an outdoor area at the back. Whelans too has a lot of space. But the smaller spots like Anseo would probably fit about 20 people in at most under the new guidelines. Cassidys would be problematic as well. Goes back a fair bit but is very narrow at points.

Hogans on Fade Street might make a decent fist of it. Plenty of seats around and is a fairly open area.

Yeah Hogans is one of the first one's that came to mind. Generally busy most evenings but very well spaced out.

The likes of Ryans and Cassidys might get away with reduced opening hours in terms of implementing distancing (given their usual early evening trade is generally all customers sitting at fairly well spaced out tables) but the question is would they be economically viable? They should have plenty of reserves built up though and will be booming again once a vaccine/treatment arrives

Yeah_Right wrote: »

Not meaning to make light of the pandemic but I'm kind of enjoying the lockdown. The last couple of weekends have been spent in the backyard with beers, books and the BBQ. Never thought that I would be a fan of a Kindle but it has been a lifesaver. I have been practicing a few different cocktail recipes and a wide variety of food on the BBQ. Now if we could just get live sport and music back, I would be very happy.

Obviously its more important that people stop dying and getting sick and losing jobs. I'm just trying to look on the bright side.

Yeah, much the same - reckon I'll be spending a lot less time in the pub going forward and more time having a few in the back garden, and having a few over when the guidelines allow

Much more health benefits too in terms of pacing the drinks and obviously a lot better off financially!

troyzer

Deleted User wrote: »

As a cyclist, I can basically do whatever I want on them :pac:

When was this ever not the case?

The Lost Sheep

Deleted User wrote: »

I can't see how another massive resurgence is going to avoided with all these plans in place. Surely numbers will go up exponentially. Not a hope we'll get to where New Zealand is. We're either gonna skip the rest of this year with extended lockdowns or bite the bullet and adopt Sweden's strategy. Hopefully our hospitals are ready. The general consensus I'm getting from friends and boards is that people are fed up.

Nobody in Europe can get near what New Zealand have done. New Zealand is over 4000km from Australia and can completely close its borders. No point trying to compare Ireland or nearly any other country to that I dont think we can afford to just skip this year and we cant now take up the swedish model which is seeing numbers of cases and deaths do up quite a lot now. P
I'm seeing at work most people are just accepting that we have a new normal and you just have to put up with that and adapt.

Stheno wrote: »

Do you not think people will be more cautious though? I'd be slow to go to a restaurant or pub when they reopen tbh

I think we will see a majority being a lot more cautious

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

If the last 6 weeks has taught us anything it's that many people are some combination of a) dumb as pigsh*t and b) ignorant tossers who only care about themselves.

Soon as the pubs reopen, they'll be absolutely rammed.

majority are not and if when pubs do open the authorities are as strict as they have been then places that break guidelines will be quickly closed and in court/trouble.

Buer wrote: »

I have zero faith in the pubs to stick to whatever guidelines they set out for themselves. These are the people who were packing in crowds even after the initial measures on March 12th as they tried to make as much money as possible in the tourist boom build up to St. Patrick's Day. Then it became clear that some pubs around the country were ignoring the instructions further and remaining open to serve alcohol even after this.

Some will behave and follow the guidelines. Some will not. All of them however will have to deal with drunk people failing to follow the measures regardless of what they do.The single biggest variable and risk of spreading a virus they have will be their customers. Alcohol and social distancing simply does not work.

that was a relatively small number of pubs though. Cant really say that about most though can we?

Yeah_Right

Deleted User wrote: »

I think it's really important to appreciate the positives of all this. I'm loving how empty the roads are. As a cyclist, I can basically do whatever I want on them :pac:

Yeah I'm loving the empty roads too. When I do go into the office, it takes me about 20 minutes as opposed to the hour it used to take. It means I can travel at a decent speed and scare the ****e out of any cyclists on the road

I will be glad when the garden centres and hardware stores open up. Got a few things I need to do to finish off the backyard. Then I will never want to leave it.

irishbucsfan

People were using Sweden as an example of how the lockdown was unnecessary. Those examples were premature it seems.

I’m in Portugal where the state of emergency is over, and society will be largely reopened starting today and continuing further on May 18th. Make absolutely no mistake, that could be a huge disaster. We won’t know if it is or isn’t until mid-June. Despite opening up some areas, they’re still being quite strict in other areas at least. Porto and Lisbon are very badly hit, if there’s a surge it could be devastating on health services in those areas.

I’d much rather be in a position where Ireland takes things slowly and then accelerates when they feel comfortable, rather than start quickly and have no way of decelerating a surge beyond another complete extended lockdown. Even if it does mean I can’t be home until the end of summer or whenever.

Arden using Ireland, which she clearly knows very little about, as an example to score domestic points was absolutely bizarre and I’d hope she’s had correspondence from Varadkar or DFAT requesting a clarification or apology. I assume she said it under pressure without accepting that it could be damaging for an ally for no reason at all.

Yeah_Right

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Arden using Ireland, which she clearly knows very little about, as an example to score domestic points was absolutely bizarre and I’d hope she’s had correspondence from Varadkar or DFAT requesting a clarification or apology. I assume she said it under pressure without accepting that it could be damaging for an ally for no reason at all.

What did she say? I had a quick look on a couple of NZ websites and couldn't find her comments on Ireland.

Buer

Yeah_Right wrote: »

What did she say? I had a quick look on a couple of NZ websites and couldn't find her comments on Ireland.

https://twitter.com/FintanYTWalsh/status/1257252935177830402

Probably wouldn't register in NZ at all.

I do think it's very odd to use a cautious approach as a reason to subtly criticise a nation. I don't think she was looking to criticise but simply to talk up her own actions and use a handy comparison whilst ignoring some massive advantages in both shutting down and opening up their borders/economies.

I think Simon Harris responded quite diplomatically and well on the matter.

“It’s obviously her job to protect people in New Zealand and to run New Zealand’s response. It is our job to run Ireland’s response. The situation in every country is very different. And there is no readymade plan that you can just pick up from one country and transpose to another.

“And I think Prime Minister Ardern seems to have done a very good job in New Zealand. But we also know that this is a virus that travels around the world and we don’t yet know when the story of this virus is going to end.

“I think it’s too premature for any country to believe it’s out of the woods in relation to it. I’m not saying that the prime minister believes that, but the plan we’ve put in place is based on our best public health advice, and I have no interest in putting forward a plan that is politically ambitious and perhaps even politically expedient but would risk people’s lives.”

b.gud

Buer wrote: »

https://twitter.com/FintanYTWalsh/status/1257252935177830402

Probably wouldn't register in NZ at all.

I do think it's very odd to use a cautious approach as a reason to subtly criticise a nation. I don't think she was looking to criticise but simply to talk up her own actions and use a handy comparison whilst ignoring some massive advantages in both shutting down and opening up their borders/economies.

I think Simon Harris responded quite diplomatically and well on the matter.

What offended me most about that is the unnecessary emphasis she put on when saying Iiiirrrrland

irishbucsfan

Buer wrote: »

https://twitter.com/FintanYTWalsh/status/1257252935177830402

Probably wouldn't register in NZ at all.

I do think it's very odd to use a cautious approach as a reason to subtly criticise a nation. I don't think she was looking to criticise but simply to talk up her own actions and use a handy comparison whilst ignoring some massive advantages in both shutting down and opening up their borders/economies.

I think Simon Harris responded quite diplomatically and well on the matter.

I don't think anyone could realistically take what she said as an intentional criticism of Ireland's approach.

The problem is she should appreciate there are a lot of unrealistic people around, in her country as well I'm sure. And any comment like this is just giving them fuel to carry on like idiots. Plenty of people talking about New Zealand's infection rate as if they aren't an island thousands of kilometers away from any real sources of cases (unlike Ireland, where we only just discovered 90% of school children seem to ski in Italy every March) It'd be just as bad if Varadkar criticised New Zealand or Australia's initial approach and gave ammunition to the whatever New Zealand's equivalent of Gemma O'Doherty is (the main lad from Hunt for the Wilderpeople probably).

Podge_irl

Wonder if we'll see a somewhat permanent change in ski resorts. They really are just ideally set up for the rampant spread of infections

swiwi_

[Deleted User] wrote: »

We also need to remember that one of the worst hit countries in the world is 16km away from our shores and lacks a functional government.

Didn’t realise the USA was so close. Never was that strong in geography.

swiwi_

irishbucsfan wrote: »

People were using Sweden as an example of how the lockdown was unnecessary. Those examples were premature it seems.

I’m in Portugal where the state of emergency is over, and society will be largely reopened starting today and continuing further on May 18th. Make absolutely no mistake, that could be a huge disaster. We won’t know if it is or isn’t until mid-June. Despite opening up some areas, they’re still being quite strict in other areas at least. Porto and Lisbon are very badly hit, if there’s a surge it could be devastating on health services in those areas.

I’d much rather be in a position where Ireland takes things slowly and then accelerates when they feel comfortable, rather than start quickly and have no way of decelerating a surge beyond another complete extended lockdown. Even if it does mean I can’t be home until the end of summer or whenever.

Arden using Ireland, which she clearly knows very little about, as an example to score domestic points was absolutely bizarre and I’d hope she’s had correspondence from Varadkar or DFAT requesting a clarification or apology. I assume she said it under pressure without accepting that it could be damaging for an ally for no reason at all.

Provided you send correspondence for making a hames of spelling her name

Neil3030

b.gud wrote: »

What offended me most about that is the unnecessary emphasis she put on when saying Iiiirrrrland

That must be it. Ardern is simply firing shots back at Ewan McKenna for constantly referring to them as New Zeee-LAND.

aloooof

Deleted User wrote: »

We also need to remember that one of the worst hit countries in the world is 16km away from our shores and lacks a functional government.

Saw the below stat today. This seemed utterly predictable from as early as the start of March.

Britain overtakes Italy to become the country behind the US with the largest single-country death toll. The number of people killed by the virus in the UK now stands at 32,313, according to official figures from the Office for National Statistics.

Bazzo

aloooof wrote: »

Saw the below stat today. This seemed utterly predictable from as early as the start of March.

What's gas is that Hancock was immediately out ****ing on about not comparing numbers internationally because of the difference in how countries report them while his government continue to try to obfuscate their true numbers in any way possible.

jacothelad

Stheno wrote: »

The UK have added 10000 non hospital deaths related to COVID to their statistics up to the 24th April

It's the ONS figures which count all deaths mentioning COVID on the death cert

Now over 32k deaths and believed to be more

It appears the media are starting to turn against the govt there

Well the BBC are excrement scared of this arrogant government who, like all right wing feckwits attack the media that don't suck up to them. You won't see anyone given air time who wants to tell the truth about this bunch of fools. The Beeb don't want to lose the licence fee or any part of it, hence they now kowtow to the worst government in ......forever.

The 'print' media are by and large the cheer leaders for the Tory party. The owners of the major papers like Murdoch and his ilk have the party in their pocket and benefit from huge tax breaks and blind eyes being turned in return for vast acreages of propaganda. The Mail, Express, Telegraph, Times and Sun are all complicit in this tragedy.

The Guardian is about the only 'major' press outlet that tries to get to the truth but all the Captain Mainwarings who vote for BoZo et al couldn't read the big words in it..

An EU-backed project monitoring all excess deaths during the pandemic reported that England had seen the highest rise in deaths against the five-year average compared with the following countries.
Austria,
Belgium,
Denmark,
Estonia,
Finland,
France,
Germany,
Greece,
Hungary,
Ireland,
Italy,
Luxembourg,
Malta,
Netherlands,
Norway,
Portugal,
Spain,
Sweden,
Switzerland
Northern Ireland,
Scotland
Wales.

Remember, over the last 10 years of Tory austerity for the poor and huge tax breaks and golden handshakes for their pals, life expectancy in the U.K. has fallen for the first time in a 100 years. Poverty kills, not that BoZo or any other of his sh*t for brains pals give a flying dog turd for others. Not one journalist or opposition politician will be permitted to expose these liars and their criminality. on t.v. programmes. There was a time when honourable Tories wouldn't hide such facts. There was a time when the electorate would see through the fog of deception spread at every opportunity by cretins. Catastrophically, we no longer have an honest press, only a crowd of self-serving tax dodgers and bone headed Little Englanders who think the light shines out of the hoop of a bumbling feckwit.

Buer

I've noticed that today. Other outlets were reporting the increase in the death count but BBC made no mention of it until a piece in their live tracker several hours after others. The piece simply explained away the bump by mentioning that different nations had different ways of counting which is very true but the UK still is believed to be underreporting deaths and other nations are counting a lot of the same things the UK are. Even removing that bump, the UK still tops the highest death count in Europe as of today and, given the stages of the virus in each nation, they're going to continue to put some distance between themselves and other countries. Again, the BBC just dismissed it due to various aspects which make it impossible to compare nations. Strangely, they were very happy to highlight the warzone and disasterous situation in Spain and Italy previously.

The other item I noticed the BBC avoided reporting on was that the 100k+ tests conducted on April 30th were due to tests sent out to homes and not tests actually completed. That was completely swept under the carpet by the BBC despite being carried by other outlets and highlighted by government opposition. It's madness. They're supposed to be a neutral state broadcaster and they're significantly contributing to the Tory information manipulation.

Stheno

I mainly follow the guardian for UK news tbh so maybe that's where I got my impression from

Neil3030

A public news service that fears losing its funding for doing its job... now that's a very sorry state of affairs.

stephen_n

The BBC seems to be in a case of fvcked if you do and fvcked if you don’t. The Tories are riding them about lack of balance. After all the interviewees for the Panorama program from the NHS were all Labour supporters. The Brexit supporters are all giving them **** for being too negative and against the government. The FBPE crowd are accusing them of going too soft on the government. They seem to be afraid to say anything anti government and that is hardly surprising, given all the stuff about the license fee coming up.

molloyjh

I definitely would not be looking to Sweden for anything re C19. At least not yet. Their numbers do not look great. Bear in mind there are differences in how figures are reported, but we tend to be counting more accurately than others. I'm not sure about Sweden, but let's assume they are not under reporting like others.

We've done about 45% more tests in total than they have (almost 4 times the number of tests per million). Despite this they have more confirmed cases than we have, by over 1,300. Which would suggest it's more widespread there than here as the % of positive tests is higher (we're at around 10% to their 15-16%).

They have over twice the number of deaths than we have, suggesting a higher mortality rate (we're at about 6% to their 12%). Although this is almost certainly an inflated rate due to who is being tested, i.e. they are testing less through contact tracing and a greater proportion are therefore hospitalised cases.

Our new case increase is at just under 1%. Theirs is about 2%.

In terms of recovered cases, we have over 3 times the number of recoveries (we're about 61% to their 17-18% recovery rate).

That leaves them with over twice the number of active cases as us, with over 4 times the number of critical cases. If they have so many more cases, critical or not, combined with an already higher mortality rate that doesnt exactly bode well.

Looking at it per million, we've confirmed around twice as many cases per million but have less deaths per million (by only 12).

Combine all of the above with an ongoing refusal to lock down and it's hard to see things there going any better any time soon. The big question remains the immunity question. Does herd immunity actually work? Does immunity last? If so, does this mean in a years time Sweden wont be worrying about additional waves where we will? That remains to be seen, but with lasting immunity far from certain, it seems quite ill advised to base a national plan on what is ultimately a shot in the dark.

Neil3030

My biggest issue with Sweden is that I just don't trust their data.

I'm tracking a few countries, mostly collecting fatality data as they are published each day. I track Ireland, UK, US, and a few other countries including Sweden, scraping the data from the Wikipedia timeline.

Sweden's timeline changes nearly every day. I'm talking figures from days or weeks ago getting revised. No other country seems to have this issue.

Stheno

https://twitter.com/President_MU/status/1257729864993562624?s=19

Head of the Irish modelling team tweeted the above earlier

Wonder if they are looking to accelerate easing of restrictions?

sydthebeat

Swedens historic numbers are also rising all the time.

I've been keeping an eye as well, and even reported numbers from almost a month ago are still being increased. They initially reported that 8th April was their zenith of deaths at 108, and almost a month later and they are still adding numbers to that. They had 108 and 113 on the 16th and 17th April... And the drop off since then has been slow, with cumulative death numbers that are truly worrying.

The easiest comparison to Sweden is their near neighbours of Norway and Finland... And in comparison to them they are doing abysmally.

mfceiling

Squidgy Black wrote: »

This is what vinters had proposed to the government apparently

Would anyone genuinely want to go to the pub if these are the "rules".

I'd sooner sit in the house.

Synode

mfceiling wrote: »

Would anyone genuinely want to go to the pub if these are the "rules".

I'd sooner sit in the house.

I said that last night too. Sounds awful

Stheno

mfceiling wrote: »

Would anyone genuinely want to go to the pub if these are the "rules".

I'd sooner sit in the house.

No.

I'm quite happy to wait for a vaccine or reliable antibody testing where I can be tested and know if I've had the plague and am immune before I go to a pub again tbh
Same with restaurants

In the absence of a vaccine or antibodies I'll pass thanks

I'll spend some of the savings on a nice patio.

Actually mfceiling, aren't you in construction? Any advice on laying a patio? :pac:

Former Former

mfceiling wrote: »

Would anyone genuinely want to go to the pub if these are the "rules".

I'd sooner sit in the house.

I would genuinely like to know if the vintners believe this is possible, or if they're hoping we all just go along with it cos we're gagging for pints.

I've never seen such a load of horsesh.it in my life. Any distancing will either be ignored from the off or will evaporate once lads get the third pint on board.

The publicans are absolute bastards.

molloyjh

So Sweden are assigning historical figures to the dates of death unlike us who are reporting based on date of test result?

irishbucsfan

Given Sweden's relative lack of testing you'd have to assume there are a serious number of unreported cases there