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

Oxford vaccine reporting 70% efficiency

Early indications it might also help stop the spread of the disease. Pollard: '

There is just a hint in the data at the moment that those who got that regime with higher protection, there is a suggestion that it was also able to reduce asymptomatic infection.

If that is right, we might be able to halt the virus in its tracks and stop transmitting between people.'

Mod

It surely goes without saying that you should only visit hospitals if you or someone dear to you is sick.

They are not places of entertainment or to satisfy your curiosity.

Leilani Proud Hockey wrote: »

So... Wet pubs staying shut and restaurants+"gastro" pubs opening. Laughable stuff it really is, has anything been learnt?

Yes, that lockdowns and endless restrictions are an utter waste of time. If you believe otherwise you can continue to avoid any of them. No one is stopping you

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

Meet for the first time? They should be more prepared than that.

That is a disgrace. Words fail me

seamus wrote: »

People still persisting with the "clueless Irish will make a balls of this" self-hating nonsense, I see. In spite of us demonstrating; twice; that we can get on top of a pandemic when other countries can't.

There are several aspects of our demographics and our society that make us a likely candidate to have the greatest pentration of a vaccine in the shortest period of time.

Countries with a more selfish populace and less competent governance will be wrestling with the vaccine rollout for five years, like the Brits and the Americans.

We are relying on the HSE to roll this out.

How can anyone have any confidence?

Vicxas wrote: »

So we now have 3 viable vaccines, this is fantastic news.

Hopefully this time next year we'll be back to normal.

We’ll be well back to normal before summer 21.

seamus wrote: »

People still persisting with the "clueless Irish will make a balls of this" self-hating nonsense, I see. In spite of us demonstrating; twice; that we can get on top of a pandemic when other countries can't.

There are several aspects of our demographics and our society that make us a likely candidate to have the greatest pentration of a vaccine in the shortest period of time.

Countries with a more selfish populace and less competent governance will be wrestling with the vaccine rollout for five years, like the Brits and the Americans.

So it's ok by you that they've waited until now to meet for the first time?

The "clueless Irish", as you put it, got on top of the pandemic twice. With buy-in from the public, work by public health, the HSE, etc. The vaccine roll-out isn't in the hands of everyone. It's a team tasked with organising it's roll out, and they're meeting for the first time today, after the announcement that 3 candidates are showing excellent efficiency.

Belt wrote: »

We are relying on the HSE to roll this out.

How can anyone have any confidence?

No we’re not. The head of the vaccine group is independent.

72sheep wrote: »

I live in one of the global metropolitan epicenters where Covid is "raging out of control" according to the mainstream media. I unexpectedly needed an x-ray last Friday and so popped along to local ER. Empty car park, nobody in waiting rooms, doctors/nurses chatting away casually, I was in and out in less than two hours. So great experience for me :-)

So, rather than fixating on the statistics from RTE News in-between binging on Netflix, go down to your local hospitals and see how your local services are coping. You can then reconcile whether what you experienced there correlates with what you are being told. Simples :-)

(And remember the names of people who try to tell you things that contradict your personal experience of the world. But that is just common sense.)

A field hospital in Moscow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbJ-bD20ZYc
Go have a look. Is it pandemonium? No, staff , and patients,are completely calm. And yet the facility exists as there is no room for COVID patients in normal hospitals in the city. I've said this before but the term overwhelmed has been completely distorted in people's minds to somehow equate to people dying in corridors or something,overhwhelmed just means normal facilities did not suffice. People don't have tobe running around like their hair's on fire. The post ponement of normal health services or at least adequate level of service for other illnesses is still a huge problem when we get to a point where extra COVID facilities are needed such as is occurring all over Europe and this will lead to large increase in excess deaths from a wide range of illnesses not just COVID.

That is what is trying to be avoided, the dramatised emotive scenes you've created in your head of what overhwhelmed hospitals look like was not going to occur, it's 2020.

What Username Guidelines wrote: »

So it's ok by you that they've waited until now to meet for the first time?

They could certainly have met sooner. But that's always been the case. A vaccine task group could have been set up in May, to get ahead of ourselves. But would it really have been of any benefit, except to be ready?
Being too prepared can be a problem - you end up having to review what you did initially to make sure it's still fit for purpose and the parameters haven't changed.

It's not like we have a warehouse full of vaccines that have arrived in Dublin Port and we're sitting down now to figure out what we do next.

There is time. In fact, there's plenty of time. The absolute earliest we can expect to see anything arrive here is the second half of December.

The vaccine will not arrive in one huge consignment ready to roll out to everyone, it will arrive in dribs and drabs.

The primary goal of the taskforce is to plan the order in which these consignments will be distributed. There is no need - at this stage anyway - to have to consider any major logistical challenges. Demand worldwide will be high, and until next Spring at the earliest we will not have access to quantities that will require pop-up vaccination centres and queues of people down the street waiting for their shot.

For the initial phase, it will be well within the capabilities of hospitals and local health centres to manage distribution.

ACitizenErased wrote: »

No we’re not. The head of the vaccine group is independent.

Great. Who will he be relying on to implement his proposals?

That is what is trying to be avoided, the dramatised emotive scenes you've created in your head of what overhwhelmed hospitals look like was not going to occur, it's 2020.

I haven't been in an A&E during Covid times (touch wood), but I was in Beaumont visiting my brother in September 2019 and had to go to the A&E for a particular reason.

Now, I don't like hospitals at the best of times. I happily avoided reading news pieces about trolley crises because a) I'd been hearing the same story every winter since forever, and b) I am relatively young and likely wouldn't need the Irish health service for some time. Or at least that is what I had convinced myself.

I was horrified when I went to A&E. There were about 15 cubicles, all full. There were at least 30 people on trollies in the middle of the A&E floor - trollies all pushed up side by side. There were trollies down by the toilets. There were people EVERYWHERE. It was a Monday evening, in September. Not winter. Not Saturday night. The trollies were mostly people in their 60's to 80's. No dignity. No privacy. All seriously ill and needing A&E care.

I don't know what the health system is like in Moscow, where the previous poster found an empty hospital, or on the other poster's city where the virus is "out of control". But I can guarantee you that if we had not imposed restrictions here, and covid was allowed to circulate, there absolutely would have been people dying on mattresses on the floor. Whether that was mattresses in A&E or a mattress in a hastily built prefab I don't think would make much difference. It's not space, or beds, we need during a surge, it's staff. Now maybe Moscow could draft doctors and nurses from other areas of Russia, but Ireland can't and couldn't do that.

That's why comparing our conservative reaction to that of other European countries, or Russia, or South Korea, is nonsense. Our health system has been held together with twine and sticky plaster for years. It could not have dealt with an even moderate surge - not without cancelling every other health service, which is what we did. And you can't do that twice. That's why restrictions have been our go to measure, because we couldn't get the staff to deal with a surge.