Covid 19 Part XXX-113,332 ROI(2,282 deaths) 81,251 NI (1,384 deaths) (05/01) Read OP

Happydays2020 wrote: »

Do you think schools, crèches and construction need to be shut for the full month of January?

Regarding schools and creches, we have been told the community drives school infections. So now according to Paul Reid the virus is lost in the community and NPHET have cancelled track and trace as system overwhelmed.

Until both are back in action yes schools need to be closed. The lastest strain is more virulent then before especially for primary school children.

khalessi wrote: »

Slashed PPE budget by 40%


in for

Ive seen this particular point made over and over again in relation to schools.

Why should the ppe budget not be reduced?

The initial budget in the autumn included provision for Perspex screens, sanitiser dispensers etc etc.

Are all the screens to be replaced? Are all the dispensers to be replaced?

25000 a week LOL

That should be done in a few hours, what a country.

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

You don’t need to vaccinate the whole population.

Even still, we'll need to massively increase that number to vaccinate those we need to vaccinate.



Still, though, good news all the same.

Cork2021 wrote: »

Yip, 70% is 3.2million so if we head for that and with more and more vaccines coming on stream I do believe MM and Leo that we’ll have our normal back during the summer!!

We'll need to be able to ramp up and vaccinate approx 100k a week by mid-February, in order to vaccinate most people by midsummer. All going well, we'll reach 70% by Autumn.

Happydays2020 wrote: »

Do you think schools, crèches and construction need to be shut for the full month of January?

I kinda hate wading into the schools argument too much because everyone is very entrenched, even by the standards of the Covid debate: they're either the main driver or they are totally safe.

My totally non-qualified opinion is that schools aren't a main driver of infection in the community, but if infections are too high then they could provide an amplifying effect. In a nutshell: if cases are low, then schools are safe, if Covid is spreading wildly they aren't.

In the context or where we are now, I think an argument can be made for closing them, at least in this most acute phase.

Basically I think the only thing that will get this situation under control again is, unfortunately, a March style lockdown. I fully expect people to jump down my throat but just, take a breath, look at the basic black and white facts:

Totally uncontrolled spread
Collapsed testing and tracing system
Hospital system on a trajectory for collapse
Numbers that will get worse
Kites already been flown about this in the media

TonyMaloney wrote: »

For those of you, like me, who spend about two hours per day refreshing the swabs site

You have to be taking the piss here?

Arghus wrote: »

We're well past the stage now of trying something like that and seeing whether it will work or not - we're in thousands of cases everyday now.

There's an extremely real possibility, actually it's a probability if we continue as we are, that the hospital system will not cope with the pressure at the end of the month. This is absolutely real now. People are still underestimating where we are.

There's no time for faffing anymore unfortunately and giving something that was tried in May, when cases were a fraction of what they are now - and didn't actually succeed in bringing cases down, they still gradually rose - isn't applicable at this moment.

Right now the absolute priority is stopping the growth of the virus and, unfortunately, because the situation is severe, the methods you have to use are also severe. Fundamentally they have to stop people mixing and interacting with each other.

Listen you maybe right but you said the very same thing back in late October, you said hospitals were two weeks from being overwhelmed. Its always worst case scenarios on here. The majority of people will follow the guidelines and the numbers will drop like they do every other time. People need to calm the hell down.

BobbyMalone wrote: »

You have to be taking the piss here?

I'm exaggerating a little for comic effect, but I do check the site regularly as do many people.
Hence why the guy behind the site has made a notification tool.

TonyMaloney wrote: »

For those of you, like me, who spend about two hours per day refreshing the swabs site - the guy who created it has helpfully created a twitter account that can notify you of the swabs as soon as they're in.

I've forgotten the username behind all this good work, but he's quietly the best of us. Thanks again.
https://twitter.com/COVID19DataIE

You shouldn't be spending two hours a day refreshing the swabs site, you shouldn't be that involved. Not having a go at you but cmon.

niallo27 wrote: »

Listen you maybe right but you said the very same thing back in late October, you said hospitals were two weeks from being overwhelmed. Its always worst case scenarios on here. The majority of people will follow the guidelines and the numbers will drop like they do every other time. People need to calm the hell down.

To the best of my knowledge I never said hospitals were two weeks from being overwhelmed in October.

I said that we needed to go to lockdown and that we'd eventually go to lockdown.

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

The bulk of Ireland’s vaccine order is for the Oxford Astra/Zenca vaccine as Ireland is too dump to store the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine

If I were given a choice I’d take Pfizer.

Solar2021 wrote: »

Agree with this

Can't open schools until everything settles down

I disagree.

We are completely underestimating the damage being done by keeping schools shut.

TonyMaloney wrote: »

Yeah looks like it, but he posts here under a different name.

He doesn't even have any ads on the site. Followed by journalists and others on twitter. He's doing a great service for us at his own expense.

He posts here also?