Relaxation of Restrictions, Part VIII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

I totally understand why people are fed up and why they don't want to listen to the news anymore. The doom and gloom is all pervasive at times and, yes, the media does favour the negative over the neutral or positive. It wears on people and leaves them feeling stressed and depressed.

But - and now I expect enormous blowback on the thread for saying this - I think following what is happening and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of the information can actually help mentally, at least, for me, it does.

For instance, I do watch the NPHET briefings - which I know many on here wouldn't do in a million years and look if you don't, you don't...whatever works for you - and I didn't come away from this evenings feeling depressed.

Despite their reputation these briefings aren't doomfests. Yes, it's clear that hospitals are in a bad way at the moment, that deaths are unfortunately quite high and will be a while coming down and that we still have a way to go, but equally it was also clear that the situation is beginning to turn around relative to where we were previously and that we can get through this particularly awful period. That there will be a way through this.

Philip Nolan gives a fairly sober analysis of the situation each week. At times during late December that analysis was grim enough, but today the picture was, all of the problems notwithstanding, of a degree of optimism that we're beginning to turn around this surge in numbers and hospital figures.

A lot of the publicly prominent members of NPHET get unfairly tagged, in my view, with being relentless in laying on the doom. I don't see it that way. I think they present the facts and usually in a more straight up manner than politicians or other media figures. They come across as far more humane and understanding than one might think from just reading their quotes in pieces published elsewhere. Nolan acknowledged multiple times today that people have made sacrifices and are mentally worn out and that it is difficult to keep doing this.

I understand if people want to tune it out. People have to do what they have to do, but, personally, I find being engaged with what is currently going on helps, rather than making me angry or depressed.

PTH2009 wrote: »

I'd rather open up fully and not this farce of a 'living with covid ' plan but all signs are pointing that its that plan were opening with

When you say, "open up fully," do you mean zero restrictions?

Newuser2 wrote:

Anyone else feeling that were drifting away from ending this?

This was always gonna be a difficult patch with this virus, as soon as we get the vaccine into enough people, we should see numbers collapsing

Dickie10 wrote: »

if there is one bit of hope. varadker and a few other senior politicans have been consistent about normal life resuming in june/july. they may just surprise us all when they know there out of the woods rregarding deaths and hospitalisations that they just pull the rug from tony and nyphet. stranger things have happened. i know leo id say will go in for this and know he will get away with it because basically he will be right, get 70% vaccinated ,even 60% and like the dog on the street knows were home and dry. deaths plummett, ICU number plummets and funnily enough around that time you wont here much about case numbers which may still be highish but wont result iin hospitalisations. that my take anyway. it could be all over quicker than we imagine.

Good man Dickie thats what we all hope for and want and a bit of positivity on the thread. We all seem to have slid backwards into a blackness where the stuff from NEPHET is monotonous and similiar every day. If they are so worried about public health do they not see the continuing damage they are doing to the nations mental health by trotting out this message. Why is there no focus on vaccines.......Oh wait, we are almost at the end of the month and 140000 only have been vaccinated so far.

Since when is it his job to have a cut off private companies? He has one job to do. Depressing the whole nation and giving us nothing to look forward to shouldn't be part of it.

opinionated3 wrote: »

Since when is it his job to have a cut off private companies? He has one job to do. Depressing the whole nation and giving us nothing to look forward to shouldn't be part of it.

Not sure he was proposing cutting off private companies, but commenting on Irresponsible behaviour, which it was. Need we be reminded of the infamous and quite callous "Jab & Go" slogan

opinionated3 wrote: »

Are people happy living like this? Cos most people I know are absolutely fed up.

There's a big difference between being fed up, and being depressed.

And most people is not the whole nation.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Did you not know its possible to vaccinate people before we receive them

Colm Henry on morning Ireland earlier as much as admitted that due to cumbersome handling and storage challenges with current vaccines available, roll out is extremely challenging, he said the roll out when approved of tge Oxford vaccine will be a game changer, the EU putting pressure 'his words" on the medicines agency to approve. Date pencilled in is 29th January.

Boggles wrote: »

Well no, thanks to the data in the link you provided you have proved it certainly is factor.

Fair play to you.



Well again no, mass movement of people in your opinion is not the problem.

In the opinion of public health who employ a whole team of behavioral scientists it is a problem.

Your opinion to be quite frank, lacks any sort of nuance and is naive in the extreme.

You are picturing a person simply getting into to their car and going for a walk somewhere and coming home, and for the majority that would be the case.

Unfortunately there would be a sizable minority who would think and act differently.

I imagine for example if distance restrictions were scrapped there wouldn't an airbnb left in the country.

They want people to stay at home and only go out for very specific reasons, the last thing they want to do with so many people with so much time on their hands is to create a 2 month bank holiday atmosphere.

It’s interesting to hear you say that my point lacks nuance, only to then tacitly agree that the majority of people would go beyond 5km without acting crazily. Even more interesting is your highly nuanced(!) description of a “sizeable minority”. What does that even mean? How can you hold the view that this ‘sizeable’ minority would act so irresponsibly in such a sustained and prevalent fashion that it would allow for the rampant spread of the virus, to the point of debilitating the health service — if you can’t even quantify it?

The key point that matters, the key determining factor of what constitutes “responsibility” is ultimately how people behave around those who are vulnerable. If young people book some Air BnB, the key factor of responsibility is not going home to an older relative or sick person. The opportunities to transmit the virus to a vulnerable person out and about were already slimmed greatly — and the Christmas spike is clearly due to the fact that it was a time of year where people took a riskier approach in heading home to gather with older relatives etc. How many of us here found ourselves in a room with a couple of older at-risk relatives over Christmas — despite having hardly been in that situation all year? I would venture many.

But no, ironically for a poster who talks about arguments lacking nuance, your argument lacks the nuance of recognising how society tends to operate at Christmas — and how that differs from most of the year. Because of the failure to apply that nuance, you wholeheartedly swallow up the government line on things like travelling beyond 5km, which wasn’t the fundamental problem.

ArthurDayne wrote: »

It’s interesting to hear you say that my point lacks nuance, only to then tacitly agree that the majority of people would go beyond 5km without acting crazily. Even more interesting is your highly nuanced(!) description of a “sizeable minority”. What does that even mean? How can you hold the view that this ‘sizeable’ minority would act so irresponsibly in such a sustained and prevalent fashion that it would allow for the rampant spread of the virus, to the point of debilitating the health service — if you can’t even quantify it?

The key point that matters, the key determining factor of what constitutes “responsibility” is ultimately how people behave around those who are vulnerable. If young people book some Air BnB, the key factor of responsibility is not going home to an older relative or sick person. The opportunities to transmit the virus to a vulnerable person out and about were already slimmed greatly — and the Christmas spike is clearly due to the fact that it was a time of year where people took a riskier approach in heading home to gather with older relatives etc. How many of us here found ourselves in a room with a couple of older at-risk relatives over Christmas — despite having hardly been in that situation all year? I would venture many.

But no, ironically for a poster who talks about arguments lacking nuance, your argument lacks the nuance of recognising how society tends to operate at Christmas — and how that differs from most of the year. Because of the failure to apply that nuance, you wholeheartedly swallow up the government line on things like travelling beyond 5km, which wasn’t the fundamental problem.

You have hung your hat on a conspiracy theory.

I have tried in good faith to explain the valid reasoning around travel limits and why countries impose them, some countries go further and impose curfews, I would not like us to go down that route.

Now you can accept that public health in consultation with behavioral science have recommended that measure for a pertinent reason or you can continue to believe the government went on a solo run and introduced the measure for the sole reason so they wouldn't anger the media.

Up to, as you were.

Tork wrote: »

I think the overwhelming negativity in this thread is affecting some people. Especially the ones who are posting here regularly, hour after hour, day after day. Especially the ones who feel strongly that Level 5 restrictions are a disproportionate way of dealing with what they perceive to be a minor illness. They're entitled to their opinion as is everyone in this country. They're entitled to express their opinion too. Using said that, every single one of us is responsible for our own mental health. I genuinely wonder if spending so long in this thread making things better or worse for some. The tone and content of some of the posts here makes me think their authors could do with giving boards, social media and covid related news less of their attention. No matter what they write here, we're going to be in Level 5 for a while yet. No matter how much they write, they are not going to change anybody's mind either. Boards should be a hobby, not a way of life.

For many people it’s probably actually a great valve. I mean, for all the bad sides of Boards, one thing that stands is that it’s a place where people post anonymously so receive no social credit for saying the popular thing, nor do they face social ostracisation for saying what many might perceive to be the wrong thing.

I’m one of those people who think L5 measures are disproportionate. Wouldn’t dare say it on the work Zoom calls because the argument just becomes a reductive mudslinging of “you agree with Gemma O’Doherty/Trump/etc” or “you don’t care about people dying”. And so, the everyday man or woman who is critical of lockdown is forced to keep their view more or less to themselves out by, because within about 5-10 minutes of debate the moral high ground finger-pointing begins.

You’re entitled to your opinion but there’s a tacit undertone to your comment that the people posting the “negative” stuff are just speaking out of frustration and a general feeling of being fed up. Maybe if you read the comments not as “negative”, but as an extremely positive exercise of people expressing their opinions and debating, you might be more inclined to see the value of these threads. Perhaps the “negativity” is as much in your own mindset as it is in the comments.

Or of course, maybe if people were allowed to drive out to the beach and hills, they might spend more time out in the fresh air and less time posting on Boards. Fair point?

hamburgham wrote: »

When this is all over and the reviews start (along with the payback), Pat Kenny will be up there as one of the main contributors to the fear and hysteria. Day in, day out, three hours a day for nine months now stirring the terror pot, broadcasting some of the most ludicrous opinions and suggestions I've ever heard.

Such as?

Boggles wrote: »

You have hung your hat on a conspiracy theory.

I have tried in good faith to explain the valid reasoning around travel limits and why countries impose them, some countries go further and impose curfews, I would not like us to go down that route.

Now you can accept that public health in consultation with behavioral science have recommended that measure for a pertinent reason or you can continue to believe the government went on a solo run and introduced the measure for the sole reason so they wouldn't anger the media.

Up to, as you were.

In absolutely no other context, in past or present, has it been viewed as controversial or conspiratorial to point out that politicians and State officials will often act out of career self-preservation. For whatever reason, and I would presume that reason is naivety, you find this to be a ‘conspiracy theory’ in the context of Covid.

I don’t doubt the expertise of any of the health officials advising the government — they are tasked with advising on a remit of “how do we stop the virus spreading” and that is their job. Concerns about proportionality versus damage to society are not things I expect them to devote any huge thought to, because they will rightly say that’s someone else’s job. Imposing travel distance limits on face value seems an effective way of stopping the spread of infection. And in a context where the new measure of State success is how low Covid cases are, State officials will act accordingly.

Infection booms over Christmas, government faces criticism it handled things badly, government says “right, we are going to have to be seen to clamp down”. Doesn’t matter if the real obvious instigator was family/friend Christmas gathering — we need to show the people we are taking action and they will applaud us. You call this conspiracy, I call it basic understanding of human nature.