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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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Dave_The_Sheep

It's so infuriating that after doing so - relatively - well for so long, it was all thrown away over the course of a month.

I just hope people cop the f*ck on, both those in government who need to actually make tough decisions now and not cop out for fear of being unpopular, and the general public in terms of personal responsibility.

But I doubt it. I have no confidence in either at this stage.

Former Former Former

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Eh we're not even testing close contacts at the moment unless they show symptoms and haven't been for several weeks now.

There's no way around the fact that we have an absolutely astronomical rate of infection at the moment, we're not doing well in any sense of the word.

I didn't say we're doing well.

I just said it's unlikely that we're actually the worst in the world.

Our testing has been unable to keep up but we're still doing a lot more than a lot of other countries.

Zzippy

stephen_n wrote: »

0.9% of the population tested positive in the space of 7 days. That’s a pretty incredible level of transmission. No matter what metric you use.

Given the high proportion of asymptomatic presentation, and the fact we can now only test people showing symptoms, it is a safe bet that the actual spread is far worse.

aloooof

stephen_n wrote: »

0.9% of the population tested positive in the space of 7 days. That’s a pretty incredible level of transmission. No matter what metric you use.

The stat I saw doing the rounds on Twitter earlier was that we had ~61k cases up to the end of October. We've also had ~61k cases in the last 2 weeks.

Lost Ormond

aloooof wrote: »

The stat I saw doing the rounds on Twitter earlier was that we had ~61k cases up to the end of October. We've also had ~61k cases in the last 2 weeks.

And would think having worked in a pharmacy for some of the pandemic the last 2 weeks have been much worse!!

Zzippy wrote: »

Given the high proportion of asymptomatic presentation, and the fact we can now only test people showing symptoms, it is a safe bet that the actual spread is far worse.

Totally. People are not as mindful as they were in maarch/april/may and are aslo thinking far morr beyond what the government has proposed, nevermind what NI assembly and idiots there have suggested

Podge_irl

I understand the inclination to blame the opening up of the country, but if you look at somewhere like Finland they have things as open as Ireland did in Dec and did not see the same spike. According to Holohan you had people reporting 30 close contacts when being traced - I don't have that on a normal trip home at Christmas! Between this and refusing to accept any responsibility for the 09 crash, I feel like Irish people are not always big on personal responsibility and are a lot more fond of blaming govt for everything. The govt absolutely could have done better but under no interpretation of their guidance could you interpret having 30 close contacts as ok.

Deleted User wrote: »

In an alternative universe, the government listened to Tomás Ryan and we'd be lively relatively normal lives right now.

I don't have much time for the zero covid people tbh. Having zero covid requires exactly that - zero. NZ and Aus have had to have reasonably serious lockdowns when they have had a few cases. We are simply not in a position to ever have zero cases with the NI border and the means of goods traffic between us and the UK.

Dubinusa

Jayzus! I hope the vaccine works and is accessible to ye all soon.
My son got his this morning. He works at Mass. General.
I'm due next week, at least I think so.
Stay safe everyone.

irishbucsfan

Podge_irl wrote: »

I understand the inclination to blame the opening up of the country, but if you look at somewhere like Finland they have things as open as Ireland did in Dec and did not see the same spike. According to Holohan you had people reporting 30 close contacts when being traced - I don't have that on a normal trip home at Christmas! Between this and refusing to accept any responsibility for the 09 crash, I feel like Irish people are not always big on personal responsibility and are a lot more fond of blaming govt for everything. The govt absolutely could have done better but under no interpretation of their guidance could you interpret having 30 close contacts as ok.

I don't have much time for the zero covid people tbh. Having zero covid requires exactly that - zero. NZ and Aus have had to have reasonably serious lockdowns when they have had a few cases. We are simply not in a position to ever have zero cases with the NI border and the means of goods traffic between us and the UK.

There’ll always be someone who completely ignores the rules and does something like ending up with 30 close contacts. That doesn’t mean the entire population should take the blame.

The R rate is somewhere between 2-3

Buer

Festive Life wrote: »

i dont think the all ireland had anything to do with it.

It's not a coincidence that places like Mayo and Waterford went from generally having some of the lowest cases in the country to featuring on the daily list of counties with significant numbers. Limerick has consistently been through the roof too.

I can speak from personal experience regarding Mayo. There were signficant numbers of meet ups in advance of Christmas with anything up to 20-30 lads with beers to watch the All Ireland final and their numbers ramped up a couple of weeks ago very much in line with the days before Christmas.

Buer

irishbucsfan wrote: »

There’ll always be someone who completely ignores the rules and does something like ending up with 30 close contacts. That doesn’t mean the entire population should take the blame.

Very much not but I think that a relatively significant portion of the population did act with a relatively relaxed attitude. The thing is, they didn't do anything wrong in terms of the instruction from government. There is a case for common sense needing to be applied here but it wasn't. The government should have been far more clear and aggressive in their messaging and instruction ahead of Christmas.

People were told they could have two households visit with no restriction on numbers. People did exactly that. But they did it multiple times. They wanted a normal Christmas so people were popping over to the cousins on St. Stephen's Day, having a few neighbours in on Christmas Eve for a glass of wine etc.

The instruction should have been that you can mix with 2 households (and probably only 1, in reality) for the duration of the relaxed restrictions and no more. People could interact with 10-15 households over the course of a week, if they wanted and still not break the restrictions. That's obviously an extreme version but a lot of people mixed with 4-6 households over the course of several days.

irishbucsfan

Buer wrote: »

Very much not but I think that a relatively significant portion of the population did act with a relatively relaxed attitude. The thing is, they didn't do anything wrong in terms of the instruction from government. There is a case for common sense needing to be applied here but it wasn't. The government should have been far more clear and aggressive in their messaging and instruction ahead of Christmas.

People were told they could have two households visit with no restriction on numbers. People did exactly that. But they did it multiple times. They wanted a normal Christmas so people were popping over to the cousins on St. Stephen's Day, having a few neighbours in on Christmas Eve for a glass of wine etc.

The instruction should have been that you can mix with 2 households (and probably only 1, in reality) for the duration of the relaxed restrictions and no more. People could interact with 10-15 households over the course of a week, if they wanted and still not break the restrictions. That's obviously an extreme version but a lot of people mixed with 4-6 households over the course of several days.

I really don’t think the 10-15 number is that extreme!

People weren’t really thinking that way, and you’re exactly right that’s how they should have been told to think about it.

sydthebeat

The single biggest issue was simply lockdown fatigue.

People were sold the November lockdown on the basis of "this is what you have to do if you want a Christmas"....

However due to lockdown fatigue, and a growing number of gobsh!te conspiracy theory asshats on social media denigrating every government decision.... Plus the fact that the Nov lockdown wasnt as severe as it should have been... That meant the case numbers coming out of the Nov lockdown was in the low 300s rather than the low double figures we had in May.. So our starting point in mid Dec was not good enough.

Add onto that the perfect storm as Venjur mentioned above.... And we are now where we are.

thomond2006

The idea that the vast majority of people flying home for Christmas were going to self-isolate first, was in hindsight, incredibly naïve.

dregin

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Not sure I agree with amazon removing hosting for Parler. An alternative to twitter should exist.

There are many alternatives to twitter. I linked mastodon a few pages back. It5a federation of instances that can all talk to each other. You might have an instance dedicated to rugyb or one for Ireland. People who register on one of these instances can follow people on any other instance and once that connection is made between the instances all users on each instance see the public messages posted on either instance.

It's a slow organic growth, but it's getting busier all the time. Worldwide mastodon now has millions of active users. I like it because it's relatively calm. I run an instance and have control over which instances can connect to mine, so that keeps out the "free speech" types.

dregin

The Inbetween is mine wrote: »

Discord would be my guess

Discord's far too open. I'd guess signal groups.

Zzippy

thomond2006 wrote: »

The idea that the vast majority of people flying home for Christmas were going to self-isolate first, was in hindsight, incredibly naïve.

Exactly, although some did. I have two friends who followed guidelines, one flew in from the States with a negative test, isolated until receiving another negative test a week later. Another drove home from the UK and self-isolated for 2 weeks before seeing his parents/anyone. Then I know of a couple who flew back from London and were visiting both families in the days after.
It would have been harsh on the people who did follow guidelines, but travel should really have been stopped for all but essential reasons, and being home for Christmas was not essential.

sydthebeat

I know many, many people who did not come home for Christmas.....

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I really don’t think the 10-15 number is that extreme!

What? 10-15 households can be anything from 20-50 people interacting in a closed environment. And that's just from 1 households perspective. Imagine how that increases exponentially if each of those other 10-15 households all did the same and all the 10-15 households that all of those visited etc etc.

This is the problem. We never needed a majority of the population to act irresponsibly. Most people visited someone over the Christmas. All you needed was 1 person in the entire group that you visited to be irresponsible, or vivist 1 person that was irresponsible, or visit 1 person who was a close contact of someone who was irresponsible. People keep talking about this like its some sort of personal responsibility where people have personal control over their circumstance. Thats just not true. Its a collective responsibility where other peoples actions will affect yours. The only way to avoid this on an individual basis is to not see anyone or go anywhere.

To give an example, I visited my MILs on Christmas Day and my parents on Stephens Day. My sister called me a few days after Christmas to tell me that she had to get a test as a close contact so I should avoid seeing my MIL given she is high risk. Unfortunately, my MIL had been out to the house since (childcare bubble). My sister had visited 1 friend on Christmas Day who had since tested positive for C19. In the end my sisters test came back negative. Her friend had picked it up from her sister in law, who she had visited on Christmas Day, but only after she had seen my sister. We effectively dodged the virus through a bit of luck. Had those visits occurred the other way around it could have been, literally, deadly.

The thing is, my sister didn't need to visit her friend. By doing so, she immediately increased the risk of infection, not just to herself, but to all of us around the table on Stephens Day and anyone we then came into contact with thereafter. And she visited just 1 household. That was it. Imagine the added risk of visiting 10-15 times as many households. Thats f-ing huge. Close contacts of 30 people is insane. And if only 10% of the population did that, it is still insane. Because over the Christmas period they almost certainly came into contact with most of the remaining 90% either directly or indirectly. That is exactly why we are where we are.

And let's be clear, while the Gov messaging on this wasn't great, NPHET were really clear. Do not meet up with loads of people. We were seeing increases before Christmas and the message they gave was clear. Keep contacts as low as you possibly can. Any adult who chose not to do that in a pandemic that has been going on for most of the year has no excuse. Covid was not new. The steps we needed to follow were well known. None of us should have needed the Gov or NPHET to tell us what to do. We are not children. And anyone who blames the Gov on this is simply part of the problem. We all know enough about this now. We have no excuse for not behaving responsibly of our own accord. We shouldn't need to be handheld.

[Deleted User]

Podge_irl wrote: »

I don't have much time for the zero covid people tbh. Having zero covid requires exactly that - zero. NZ and Aus have had to have reasonably serious lockdowns when they have had a few cases. We are simply not in a position to ever have zero cases with the NI border and the means of goods traffic between us and the UK.

In my alternate reality, we marched north and have a single island policy. The transfer of goods is extremely limited to the degree of importers being put out of business. Kinda like what we've done to the entire hospitality industry. I have no idea how viable that is but I'd prefer it over our current situation. No more avocado toast. Or penicillin.

OldRio

Podge_irl wrote: »

I understand the inclination to blame the opening up of the country, but if you look at somewhere like Finland they have things as open as Ireland did in Dec and did not see the same spike. According to Holohan you had people reporting 30 close contacts when being traced - I don't have that on a normal trip home at Christmas! Between this and refusing to accept any responsibility for the 09 crash, I feel like Irish people are not always big on personal responsibility and are a lot more fond of blaming govt for everything.

The government have a habit of taking zero responsibility for anything. Non, never mind the crash in 09. See Mícheál Martins recent statement as an example.

Recently they've used NPHET to hind behind when things get tough and then throw them under a bus when it suits. (That didn't work out too well did it)

The opening up in December was stupid, every man and his donkey knew what was going to happen in January.

[Deleted User]

I was watching the Tommy Tiernan show on the weekend and he had psychologists from the ESRI on. they were talking about human behavior and One of them gave an example about medicines and warning labels. Give a person 2 medicine bottles one saying this could cause an ear to drop off, and the other saying this could cause an ear to drop off but also headaches stiffness and a bunch of minor side effects people will take the one with the headaches etc as it makes the serious out come less because of the extra less risky side effects.

I think we saw that play out over Christmas one message has been clear and consistent throughout - wear masks, wash hands, socially distance, and reduce contacts. But by easing restrictions it makes the importance or the weight of them feel less important and less of a warning.

The situation we are in is a total failure from government policy to people not upholding the social contract we all signed up to last March

molloyjh

OldRio wrote: »

The government have a habit of taking zero responsibility for anything. Non, never mind the crash in 09. See Mícheál Martins recent statement as an example.

Recently they've used NPHET to hind behind when things get tough and then throw them under a bus when it suits. (That didn't work out too well did it)

The opening up in December was stupid, every man and his donkey knew what was going to happen in January.

Then every man and his donkey should have ignored the easing if restrictions and behaved accordingly. But they didn't, did they? The Gov didn't hold a gun to peoples head forcing them to meet up in groups or visit 10-15 households or anything like that. People did that all by themselves. Despite being told not to. Despite being aware of what that meant. The Gov could have done better, but it was people who spread C19. People need to take the bulk of the responsibility here.

molloyjh

connemara man wrote: »

I was watching the Tommy Tiernan show on the weekend and he had psychologists from the ESRI on. they were talking about human behavior and One of them gave an example about medicines and warning labels. Give a person 2 medicine bottles one saying this could cause an ear to drop off, and the other saying this could cause an ear to drop off but also headaches stiffness and a bunch of minor side effects people will take the one with the headaches etc as it makes the serious out come less because of the extra less risky side effects.

I think we saw that play out over Christmas one message has been clear and consistent throughout - wear masks, wash hands, socially distance, and reduce contacts. But by easing restrictions it makes the importance or the weight of them feel less important and less of a warning.

The situation we are in is a total failure from government policy to people not upholding the social contract we all signed up to last March

I wonder is that natural human behaviour or learned cultural behaviour. Like the "ah sure it'll be grand" attitude we have here in Ireland which isn't as prevalent in other cultures.

Synode

dregin wrote: »

There are many alternatives to twitter. I linked mastodon a few pages back. It5a federation of instances that can all talk to each other. You might have an instance dedicated to rugyb or one for Ireland. People who register on one of these instances can follow people on any other instance and once that connection is made between the instances all users on each instance see the public messages posted on either instance.

It's a slow organic growth, but it's getting busier all the time. Worldwide mastodon now has millions of active users. I like it because it's relatively calm. I run an instance and have control over which instances can connect to mine, so that keeps out the "free speech" types.

That looks really cool. What's your instance dedicated to? And how do first time users find a list of instances they could potentially join?

I'm currently trying to get people to move from WhatsApp to Signal (I really dislike Facebook as a company). A lot of people just don't care what Facebook do with their data

[Deleted User]

molloyjh wrote: »

I wonder is that natural human behaviour or learned cultural behaviour. Like the "ah sure it'll be grand" attitude we have here in Ireland which isn't as prevalent in other cultures.

It was described as a study showed so I couldn't tell you. But I could definitely see it as both tbh

thomond2006

The blame government for everything crowd actually detracts from the blame that can be fairly attributed to the government.

Congregations of people to watch All-Irelands (a pub nearby to me in Co. Limerick was closed over a post match party) is not the fault of policy.

At the same time I think questions have to be asked around the allowing of flights into the 26 counties in December. Yes, hands were tied over access via NI but I'm certain many people would not have flown if the only option was flying into NI.

An Irish doctor on Twitter recently mentioned his most common refrain from a referral to a test was "but I only visited 1 household". C'mon.

[Deleted User]

thomond2006 wrote: »

The blame government for everything crowd actually detracts from the blame that can be fairly attributed to the government.

Congregations of people to watch All-Irelands (a pub nearby to me in Co. Limerick was closed over a post match party) is not the fault of policy.

At the same time I think questions have to be asked around the allowing of flights into the 26 counties in December. Yes, hands were tied over access via NI but I'm certain many people would not have flown if the only option was flying into NI.

I would have preferred the NZ OZ method, cart everyone to park west and sit them there for 2 weeks, at least pay for the use of it when the Gov had it sit there empty as a triage hospital

sydthebeat

molloyjh wrote: »

I wonder is that natural human behaviour or learned cultural behaviour. Like the "ah sure it'll be grand" attitude we have here in Ireland which isn't as prevalent in other cultures.

nah , its human behaviour

theres also the "asch experiment" effect here where people will conform even if they know things are incorrect, if they see their social group acting against correctness.

and i wouldnt be dismissing pure lockdown fatigue either.
People who know what is right to do, have been doing right, but just chose to take the risk when it came to socialising at christmas otherwise whats the point of living at all.

thomond2006

connemara man wrote: »

I would have preferred the NZ OZ method, cart everyone to park west and sit them there for 2 weeks, at least pay for the use of it when the Gov had it sit there empty as a triage hospital

Everyone would just travel via NI to avoid that and you'd be wasting taxpayer money.

Synode

connemara man wrote: »

I would have preferred the NZ OZ method, cart everyone to park west and sit them there for 2 weeks, at least pay for the use of it when the Gov had it sit there empty as a triage hospital

It's a waste of money when we have an open border we can't control. I'd love it too if we could, I've family in Australia and they've had it a lot easier than here.