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

MOR316 wrote: »

Said this before but, I really cannot understand what people have been doing for the numbers to go this high

I know I was on my own and not in anyone's company but, for the last month, I was in bars/pubs, I was out on my walks and I saw no one acting out of line or inappropriately. Retail shops, were as you'd expect but again, I saw everyone adhering to the regulations.

In the Summer, when things opened up, cases went up but, it was very, very gradually, over a period of almost 4 months was it? I expected a rise in cases, NPHET expected a rise in cases, everyone expected a rise in cases but, no one expected these numbers.

What the hell have people been doing? Seriously, have they been riding each other?

I think your post identifies a theory some people have - that nobody really knows what is driving this, at least at granular level. Sure the restaurants were open but hardly enough to cause this explosion.

And the gobdaws holding street parties were at it all along - no change there.

prunudo wrote: »

Who was the poster asking about the covid app earlier? Big brother must be following this thread, just seen an ad for downloading it on an ad break on rte2 just now.

Strange. Some times I'm watching a random movie on tv, one I've not seen in ages. Then Id go on to youtube few hours later only for random clips of this same movie filling my homepage. wtf.
Someone watching and listening

SpacialNeeds wrote: »

What a load of garbage

Why garbage. We have 5k today, if each of them had 5 contacts that's 25k tomorrow and 125 the day after, I'm obviously exaggerating a bit but the numbers would be crazy if the majority passed it on.

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

If there's 49 ICU beds left and if there's another increase of 6 tomorrow and 6 the day after... Does that mean that ICU will be full in 8 days???

Yes and no. Once standard capacity beds are gone then you are into surge capacity. This will mean all but the most urgent operations and healthcare gets cancelled to free up beds.

At this rate, surge capacity will probably buy us another 10 days before that's exhausted. Then you are into triage and a real dark place no civilized advanced society should ever be: choosing who gets health care.

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

We aren't that far off from being full, are we?

No we are not. But there is nothing we can do now to change the next week but we can change the weeks after that. Other than to look after ourselves and family by staying home. That German ad comes to mind:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FS1DDn2eklU

Will Yam wrote: »

I think your post identifies a theory some people have - that nobody really knows what is driving this, at least at granular level. Sure the restaurants were open but hardly enough to cause this explosion.

And the gobdaws holding street parties were at it all along - no change there.

I agree.
I get that it's emotive when people see cases numbers but, I haven't seen any data or evidence, from NPHET or whomever else that says hospitality drove cases up. Simply put, it's speculative to say that

As you say, there wasn't enough open and given they were only open for less than 3 weeks, it can't be all on them that drove it to this, regardless of what people may think.

Anyways, my words aren't gonna change anything

Ficheall wrote: »

There's a difference between "the majority of people don't pass it on to others" and "the majority of people don't pass it on to everyone they meet".


If you have 5 contacts and pass it on to 1, you're passing it on. So the numbers would be 5 today, 5 tomorrow, 5 the next day.. Which is closer to what we have. A slight underestimate, probably.

What I think and its just my opinion, I think superspreaders ate the issue. I think you have certain people that pass it on to 40-50 people.

Louis Friend wrote: »

The public health advice was that up to three households could mix. That’s probably 4 cars parked outside a house.

Yeah, in Killiney

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Everybody has a theory about the spread but we've seen no clear cut evidence of the environments in which it has blown up.

Everyone seems to want to use their precovid agendas to blame for the spread. Holohan and Co blames alcohol. Leftists blame commercial activities and capitalism. Right wingers wanted to blame the BLM protests. Left wingers wanted to blame the anti mask protests. There's f**k all evidence to suggest any of these things are linked to the virus spread.

Nobody has any idea of how it's spreading. Not NPHET, not the WHO, not government, nobody.

I have my theories...maybe it comes from the outer limits . beyound the final frontier of space..in a galaxy far far away...




and before anyone thinks I have gone and become bonkers..
Joke

boardise wrote: »

I agree that it is a cruel and heavy burden for teens and twenties who are at a point in their lives when they are most drawn to assemble in peer groups and start to become sexually active either by pairing off or playing the field.
What to do ? I don't think they can be given a 'free pass'.The realities and associated risks of the situation must be explained to them in plain simple language.It is to be hoped that the large majority of them will step up to the plate and join in the concerted social effort to limit the damage.
They're fortunate to have so many technological means of communication and entertainment to cushion the pain of separation.

The realities of 2020 have been explained to them and anyone who can quantify what’s happening.

The excess deaths and hospital capacity is what everyone was watching.

The excess deaths were nothing unusual, many hospitals were empty for months of the year.

I honestly believe listening to NPHET harper on about R numbers above 1 when cases numbers were about 20 last Summer when hospitals were empty desensitised young people to what was going on.

It was an incredibly sensitive situation to handle compliance long term and last Summer was an opportunity to give citizens in Ireland some reprieve but it never happened.

majcos wrote: »

Paper in JAMA published mid December looked at household transmission among 77000 people. It was a meta-analysis of 54 other studies.

16.6% of those infected passed in on to household contact. 37.8% passed it on to a spouse. Adults more likely to contract it than children.

Hold on so the Majority don't even pass it on to their spouse who presumably they share a bed with?

MOR316 wrote: »

I agree.
I get that it's emotive when people see cases numbers but, I haven't seen any data or evidence, from NPHET or whomever else that says hospitality drove cases up. Simply put, it's speculative to say that

As you say, there wasn't enough open and given they were only open for less than 3 weeks, it can't be all on them that drove it to this, regardless of what people may think.

Anyways, my words aren't gonna change anything

We don't have the data because we don't look for it - contact tracing only goes back 2 days to identify people who might be about to become infectious. They don't, in most cases, trace it back 5, 6, 7 days to see where you might have got it (because we're at such high numbers, the priority is to stop onward spread instead of looking at past transmissions). But that means we don't have the sort of definitive data that shows where infections come from. The weekly cluster report is next to useless - it might say 0 pub outbreaks, 15 school ones and 200 household ones, but most of the household ones are just people giving it to their family/housemates. We never track where the person who brought it into the house got it in the first place, unless they're part of a known cluster. It had to come from mixing with others somewhere else.

Covid spreads when people from different households mix in close confines without PPE - whether that's at house parties, offices, schools or pubs/restaurants. Pubs/restaurants involve people sitting very close together for long periods of time with masks off, often shouting. I really miss nights out like everyone else, but there is no way that groups mixing in pubs isn't part of the reason for this surge. Most places were fully booked in Dublin and Cork cities at the weekends, and most people weren't just going with their own household.
More gatherings, whether in homes or in pubs = more contacts = more cases.

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

If there's 49 ICU beds left and if there's another increase of 6 tomorrow and 6 the day after... Does that mean that ICU will be full in 8 days???

No. That’s when escalation plans come into action. A bed in hospital terms does not simply refer to the physical bed but to all that goes into the delivery of the level of care needed by that category of bed. In ICU that is a 1:1 nursing ratio 24 hours a day, healthcare assistants, anaesthetists and physician staff, and ideally also physiotherapists, dieticians, pharmacists, etc. It also includes equipment such as ventilators, dialysis machines, and basics such as oxygen.

More physical spaces and equipment can be freed up by cancelling surgeries. Some building and reconfiguration of existing space has already happened. Hospitals have received additional equipment such as ventilators, hoods for non invasive ventilation which can deliver high concentrations of oxygen, and dialysis machines for kidney failure in the last year.

Aside from the physical requirements, more ICU beds are generated by redeploying staff from other areas into ICUs, cancelling any leave, and staff taking on more shifts. These measures then however deplete the services in other departments and lead to cancellations. An ICU nurse has specific skills and training that cannot be simply replaced by any other nurse but some nurses have been up-skilled and some who previously worked in ICU and left to take on other roles have been back in for retraining. Escalation plan also allows for buddying where one fully fledged ICU nurse would be paired with a nurse who is less experienced in ICU setting.

Further capacity is possible from private hospitals too.

I think close to 500 ICU beds were ‘created’ during the first wave using escalation policies even though there is about 275 now. That number hopefully can be created again if needed but sustaining it for weeks is very hard as system is not really resourced for that at the moment.