molloyjh wrote: » 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.
sydthebeat wrote: » 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.
awec wrote: » Spot on. I also think the messaging of endless misery from the government, NPHET and dare I say it, elements of the media, has worn people out and they just aren't listening any more. I can't remember his name but there is some balloon that RTE keep using to talk about covid and he is the most pessimistic person I've ever heard on the telly. I remember when the vaccines were first announced he was all "well, we don't really know if they'll work". Is it any wonder people are fed up?
thomond2006 wrote: » Everyone would just travel via NI to avoid that and you'd be wasting taxpayer money.
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
Former Former Former wrote: » P TLDR: I feel like a muppet for not going out and seeing loads of people. I'm paying the price for it anyway, at least I could have got a few scoops and a decent meal out of it.
Zzippy wrote: » 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.
molloyjh wrote: » 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.
OldRio wrote: » I agree ré personal and social responsibility. But not everyone ignored the restrictions. Not everyone met in large groups. The people I know locally, cancelled family coming home, including our own.
irishbucsfan wrote: » I meant I don’t think it’s that extreme as a guess from Busr at how many were interacting, in the post I was replying to he said he thought that was an extreme estimate, I’d say it was probably fairly common
Zzippy wrote: » Look on the bright side - you're not on a ventilator now. I know the advice was 3 households max, but seriously, WTF did people think was going to happen if they met 3 households - those other 2 households are also probably meeting other households, etc. It just wasn't worth the risk. We live a few miles from my in-laws and didn't see them over Christmas, nor any of the cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. I haven't seen my folks since August, before that February, and who knows when I will see them again.It was bad decisions from government ignoring scientific advice, giving bad guidance to citizens ignoring that advice that caused this surge. And even if you stuck to "guidance" and met 1-3 other households, you were taking a risk and trusting your family's health to other people's behaviour.
Deleted User wrote: » These comparisons are nonsense. Dublin to London is like Melbourne to Adelaide - Australia is a continent and more comparable to Europe than Ireland. We've relied on our migrant workforce from the EU within the health service throughout covid and an Australia style isolationist response when we have an open border could well have created a worst of both worlds scenario. Now, had Ireland been able to go with an Island wide approach things could have been a lot different. It sickens me that the DUP couldn't get over themselves for 5 minutes to do the right thing for both Northern Ireland and Ireland but sadly they are a political reality (and a malignant one at that) which we've had to factor into our response. We've also had to deal with one of the worlds major epicentres being 12 miles off our coast, Australia has no such equivalent. Credit to Australia, they've used their advantages well and should be proud of themselves - but they have advantages that we simply do not. Much like Zzippy - most of my family live between 1 and 10 miles from my house. I saw no one and accepted Christmas was a lost cause this year. Anyone who used the absolute limit of the restrictions is entirely responsible if they got covid. There are roads in Ireland with an 80km speed limit and if I insisted on going around some of the bends at 80km I'd end up in a ditch - this is no different, people should have used their own cop on and didn't.
awec wrote: » I don't think the govt. ignored scientific advice with respect to households. It was the pubs and restaurants.
Zzippy wrote: » Finally! Thought this day would never come, but there are workmen on the road outside installing fibre broadband cabling. Soon we'll have fibre broadband to within 10 yards of the house. Now just to deal with Eir and wait 5 years to get the last 10 yards connected!
FACECUTTR wrote: » A great day for the parish. Would you not try get sky in and they could organise the eir connection and subsidize it ?
Zzippy wrote: » Is that an option? TBH I had no idea of the next step, presumably they have to run an overhead wire to the house, or underground ducting? Thought we would have to go through Eir, but very happy if we don't!
Burkie1203 wrote: » All Ireland had nothing to do with it. Relaxing restrictions had a little bit to do with it but it is largely down to huge numbers of people having large gatherings at home and 50-60k people allowed enter the country in the 10 days before Xmas and do whatever they wanted. I saw a tweet on Sunday before Xmas from David Hall. He was in a coffee shop in town on a work break and a couple sat near him with their kid, telling their friend they arrived over from the UK the day before and were going for covid tests on Tuesday. They should not have been let in without mandatory quarantine or a negative test.
Tim Robbins wrote: » The village that has had the highest covid incidence in last few weeks is coincidentally in Mayo. Spoke to someone there and was told there were all sorts of p*ss ups for the match and loads of them caught it. It's anecdotal evidence but sadly think kicking that game off at anything other than 10.00 am was a big mistake.
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.
stephen_n wrote: » If the cases drop off sharply in the next week. It will be clear that the main difference between us and Finland would be the way we celebrate Christmas here. People choosing to congregate indoors for longer periods of time. Bigger families and extended families.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wa.vanillicon.com/v2/ad289898c0c6dda7e667bf900ae26d0c.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wd.vanillicon.com/v2/d3e92925f7bde702415f91ea088d4f7a.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w6.vanillicon.com/v2/6081e4655739e0887aaf16222f88b015.svg)
