Covid 19 Part XXVIII- 71,942 ROI(2,050 deaths) 51,824 NI (983 deaths) (28/11) Read OP

As usual, posters are just saying that anything that isn't immediately necessary to physical survival is non-essential.

So edible food, shelter, oxygen and a few other things are essential, everything else (including real life contact with other human beings) is a disposable lifestyle option and is superseded by the need to slow down a trickle of PCR test positives.

I would wonder how it will all end.

nofools wrote: »

Education is also discretionary and non essential (short term)

Higher priority than street drinking yes but also the indoor crowded nature is inexcusable.

I saw an excellent suggestion above, close schools now, make up the time in summer when windows can be wide open or even hold classes outdoors.

You can make that argument that school can be viewed as a discretionary activity too, yes, but I think the context of schools being already closed for months prior to them re-opening changes the context a lot.

landofthetree wrote: »

The obvious solution was to close schools in Dec and Jan. Everyone knew an Irish winter is ideal for covid spread.

Bring the students in over Easter and July at primary level to make up the time.

Secondary schools in over Easter and June and state exams in July.

The amount of posters on this thread demanding schools close with no evidence is a joke. There is no support for these crazy suggestions among the wider public.
Perhaps these posters should turn their attention to hospital outbreaks, nursing home outbreaks & NPHET + HSE ineptitude in getting their own house in order, while simultaneously allowing thousands of people to lose their jobs.

eigrod wrote: »

https://twitter.com/president_mu/status/1328409973202837517?s=21

And on what date did the schools reopen from the mid term break?

I have had to attend college once a week and driving to a park to exercise on my own. (Good way to forget about everything). Two weeks I was wondering how the Ro was 0.5 tbh. Traffic seemed pretty busy and students in general just do not the maturity to behave appropriately. I wonder what role Third Level education is playing and accommodation. Have heard stories of house parties also. Mask wearing does seem quite good lately tho. How much that helps I'm not really sure.
Online learning is extremely challenging for both students and lecturers .

Peter Flynt wrote: »

Exactly.

NPHET are arranging the stats to suit their conclusion.

I'm a secondary teacher. A colleague caught COVID and she caught it in the school as there were direct infections in the class she taught. She was out for a number of months and has only just returned.

When she caught the virus shr received a phone call from the HSE.
When asked where she felt she caught it she replied

"At school". . . .

The response she got was. . . "We'll put that down as a community transmission".

A number of months as in September and October?

The schools only came back in September.

Can you explain more?

And your last point of take with a pinch of salt, seems numbers in schools are listed for everyone to see.

Peter Flynt wrote: »

And on what date did the schools reopen from the mid term break?

Correlation doesn't mean causation. Go back two weeks from when the downward trend began, schools were in.

wadacrack wrote: »

I have had to attend college once a week and driving to a park to exercise on my own. (Good way to forget about everything). Two weeks I was wondering how the Ro was 0.5 tbh. Traffic seemed pretty busy and students in general just do not the maturity to behave appropriately. I wonder what role Third Level education is playing and accommodation. Have heard stories of house parties also. Mask wearing does seem quite good lately tho. How much that helps I'm not really sure.
Online learning is extremely challenging for both students and lecturers .

And despite all of that the only age group where case numbers are rising are in the elderly.
Health care workers are getting infected at a rate of 50/day and over 60% of patients in hospital with covid acquired it in hospital.

You're adding 2 and 2 together her and coming up with 5.

nofools wrote: »

Give me a break

How did you humanity survive before the dawning of the modern school system?

Answer...just fine

Yeah you're comparing like for like.

2020 to 100s of years ago.

Would you agree humanity has improved massively since before the modern school system?

Hmmm I wonder why...

nofools wrote: »

I would argue that we have digressed if anything.

We just have more technology.

Well life has certainly improved for children thanks to schooling, not digressed. Unless you think they were better off down the mines lol

Arghus wrote: »

Yes, but his point was if that behaviour continues we would eventually see cases arising from it and saying that he has no definite evidence isn't the same as saying that cases don't arise from instances like that. And also he made the point that it has a detrimental effect on people trying to abide by the rules and to do their best to see those kind of scenes.

All totally reasonable points IMO.

Of course there's clusters/cases/outbreaks/ linked to schools. But the question is why you are comparing the necessity of schools staying open with the necessity of Street drinking being allowed to carry on.

Schools will have cases. Hospitals will have cases. Factories, workplaces will have outbreaks - but these things are deemed essential and that's the cost of keeping them open, there's a calculated risk there that's deemed worth taking.

Street drinking is discretionary and non essential. That's why it doesn't get the same treatment. And it does pose a risk - come on, I know it's outside but do you really think it poses zero risk with people in close contact and shouting and roaring in each others faces? - and the more of it that goes on the greater that risk becomes.

I'm not arguing btw that it's solely responsible for the recent rise in numbers. Obviously there's a few factors, but the argument that it - a non essential social activity - is being unfairly singled out, while other essential activities are being let go is a weak argument.

At the very least it's not sensible behaviour in the context of efforts to suppress the virus. It's behaviour that can be perhaps understood, but in no way justified - but of course, it's boards, so I'm not in the least bit surprised seeing people rush to its defence.

But Arghus, do you see the fundamental problem with saying that it can be understood before saying it cannot be justified? Ask yourself why you think it’s understandable. It’s understandable because, ultimately, you know full well that people are penned in and just want some form of social outlet. We have crap weather, it’s winter, people are fed up and stressed. Going to grab a few takeaway pints with a couple of friends is a small respite from months of life being turned into mere existence.

Whatever one wants to say about its necessity, it’s the natural consequence of people’s ability to have social outlets be suppressed that they will simply crave a social outlet — it is simple human nature, regardless of how necessary it is. You may as well ask why people ever talk to eachother and why people ever make friends — it is part of our instinct. The problem with this latest idiotic example of outrage reactionism is that it only makes even more inevitable the very things people on here claim they want to avoid. The more people are prevented from doing these things, the more inevitable it is made that even light loosening of restrictions at Christmas will lead to an outpouring of peoples’ pent up desire to, basically, have a bit of craic and a taste of normality.

The hypocrisy laden in these decisions is sometimes head spinning. We are told house parties are a terrible issue and yet at every turn we seem determined to create the environment where even people long past the housepartying stage of their lives will fancy it. We are told we must suppress getting a feckin pint in a window and drinking it outside, all with the apparent goal in mind of getting numbers to such a point that we can open up more at Christmas — which only makes it more likely that the virus will spread all the more, only this time the young spreaders will be more likely to be around older relatives.

Yes, in the grand scheme of the universe, getting a takeaway pint doesn’t feature too highly in the hierarchy of needs — but the absolute strict necessity of something is not the only determining factor in saying whether a decision to ban it is stupid or disproportionate.

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

Heard it all now, education is discretionary . Epic level of nonsense.
Thankfully outside of this forum no one who matters feels the same.

I say this to myself every day about the majority of opinions on here