Covid 19 Part XXXIII-231,484 ROI(4,610 deaths)116,197 NI (2,107 deaths)(23/03)Read OP

The 'plan' appears to be we will not be making any major changes to/from level 5 until April 5th and it's unlikely we will be making any major changes after that. Some plan allright.

Faugheen wrote: »

Yes that is true, but we truly don’t know when the new variant actually arrived here. I think the first cases were confirmed around Christmas time but it could have been earlier than that (not based on any scientific data, just me looking at potentials so you can take that statement with a pinch of salt).

That’s also a fault in the contact tracing system. You could have contracted the virus in the pub but if you don’t show symptoms for 3 or more days afterwards, then who you were with that day makes no difference. Contact tracing purely focuses on who you may have passed it on to in the preceding two days rather than where you may have been infected.

Are you talking about uk kent variant? if ao kilkenny and dublin ... late nov..early december... if I can remember correctly... mentioned elsewhere started showing up in sequences...can check if you want later or check nextstrain.org.

shinzon wrote: »

Just asking here but were 11 months in dont you think at this stage there would have been a plan b c d e or even f.

In the governments thinking vaccination=normality, thats it thats the plan always has been not sure what magic wand people think the government has.

Shin

If thats the plan, then why not tell us what vaccination numbers we need to hit to relax restrictions?

timmyntc wrote: »

If thats the plan, then why not tell us what vaccination numbers we need to hit to relax restrictions?

The numbers aren't knowable at this stage.

Maxface wrote: »

The 'plan' appears to be we will not be making any major changes to/from level 5 until April 5th and it's unlikely we will be making any major changes after that. Some plan allright.

The plan is effectively mass vaccinations in April/May/June.

I've issues with some of the plan, but realistically I know that's the best the government can do.

They can't promise anything after vaccinations because there's always the risk of something unexpected, but most reasonable experts seem to be saying we'll see a rapid re-opening for most activities after vaccination, with a lot of caution still (e.g. perhaps table service only in pubs) and people being asked to take precautions over Winter in particular (e.g. wear a mask, work from home if they can). Once we get in 2022 and we have more understanding of the virus, how long the vaccines last for and how much infection there still is we will better understand the long-term future.

plodder wrote: »

Seems to me the situation is either:

a) NPHET have target metrics but they don't want to share them in case they have to be changed, or

b) they don't have target metrics and they don't know how we are going to get out of this

It's option c - They have a fairly broad set of metrics that they are monitoring but the decision on whether to change requires assessing all of the metrics at a given time to make a complex decision.

Having a target set of metrics, handcuffs you into making decisions which may not be ideal.

For example, if its was "Level 3 = < 500 cases/day, < 500 in hospital and < 100 in ICU", then that sounds reasonable.

But imagine one day you have 300 cases, 400 in hospital and 99 in ICU, and infection rates are on a steep upward slant.

According to your target metrics, you have to open up. When in reality you shouldn't.

You could of course account for this by creating a huge decision tree and saying "If this and this and this and this...", but then you've lost sight of the original intent; that is to make it easy for people to see when and why restrictions will be moved.

Any road, obviously not blown away by Martin's statement last night. Funnily enough I don't think he needed to say anything different, he just needed to say it differently.

There was a lot of positivity available to him; 82% of first doses done by the end of June. Great. Schools starting to reopen next week. Fab. We can start lifting restrictions after Easter. Finally.

Instead he went for the negative messaging. We'll have to wait and see what happens before deciding on lifting restrictions. We have to be careful. The variant is a new virus (WTF).

It's incredible the difference that can be made by just tweaking the message a little, saying, "We hope to be able to start reopening our country in April. We believe we can do this. We want to get to a place where everything is as close to normal as it can be by the end of the Summer."

Cork2021 wrote: »

RTE journalist scaremongering who would’ve guessed!!

https://twitter.com/boucherhayes/status/1364487026448478215?s=21

Boucher Hayes is some dose

Cork2021 wrote: »

RTE journalist scaremongering who would’ve guessed!!

https://twitter.com/boucherhayes/status/1364487026448478215?s=21

and about 2 responses down

https://twitter.com/davecoghlan/status/1364491425187041282?s=20

Cork2021 wrote: »

RTE journalist scaremongering who would’ve guessed!!

https://twitter.com/boucherhayes/status/1364487026448478215?s=21

I wonder did Philip read the article or just the alarmist headline!



The new evidence that the California variant could make people sicker, and vaccines less effective, should spur more intensive efforts to drive down infections, Chiu said. Those should include both public health measures, such as masking and limits on public activities, and a campaign of rapid vaccinations, he added.

seamus wrote: »

It's option c - They have a fairly broad set of metrics that they are monitoring but the decision on whether to change requires assessing all of the metrics at a given time to make a complex decision.

Having a target set of metrics, handcuffs you into making decisions which may not be ideal.

For example, if its was "Level 3 = < 500 cases/day, < 500 in hospital and < 100 in ICU", then that sounds reasonable.

But imagine one day you have 300 cases, 400 in hospital and 99 in ICU, and infection rates are on a steep upward slant.

According to your target metrics, you have to open up. When in reality you shouldn't.

I disagree because I think you conflating targets that are critical with ones that are less important. The critical one is the hospital cases.

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

The whole point of last night was for Martin to clean up the fückery Martin and his minions have made of communications with the public instead he introduced something which is an outright lie and further muddied the waters.
The opening up of the country has been handed over to Nphet. I would suggest expecting being able to go on a holiday this summer in Ireland may lead to disappointment. You might get to walk down the bikini section in Penny's at the end of August.

I think MM spoke reasonably well although that line on a new virus was unfortunate particularly given the air time the zero Covid crowd have had in recent days.

I think they know there will be more household visits and are trying to scare the ba jays-us out of people but that will back fire in respect to the hope on a vaccine.

podgeandrodge wrote: »

RTE journalist that thinks his readers all have LA Times subscriptions.

You dont need a sub to read the artcile

podgeandrodge wrote: »

That study excluded narcissism, which impacts the likelyhood of long covid . Look at Claire Byrne and Ciara Kelly, and many others in the public eye.

Long Covid and irreversible damage aren't the same thing. After I had what was most likely Covid in March I developed Pleurisy in my right lung, Costochndritis across my chest wall, Esophagitis, Esophageal Candida and subacute thyroiditis which caused occasional Myocarditis and hormonal changes that mimicked a (slightly) early menopause. None of those are irreversible damage but they do take a long time to recover from and the range of post-viral issues was very confusing as my symptoms were all over the place. I spent most of April and May in bed. I had to be very careful as I increased my activity levels in June. Any time I felt better and got active, I relapsed. By July I was able to be active again but I was dealing with near constant pain in my chest and carried a pulse oximeter around with me to monitor my breathing difficulty. By September, there were exercises that I could do for 55 minutes in March and feel exhilarated, that less than 10 minutes of would leave me on the floor gasping for breath and in pain for days/weeks.

By the end of November the chest inflammation finally abated and I mostly don't have any more chest pain. By January I could finally get back to high intensity exercise for long periods. Now I still have thrush and waves of the thyroiditis. My hormones are still kind of bananas. This month so far I have had 9 nights where I did not have to get up and change out of soaked pjs. This is a massive improvement on the past year, where I have regularly had to change 4-5 times a night. I had thought this was early-ish menopause related but the steady improvement as the thyroiditis improves is indicating it's post-viral hormone disruption. (Though I suspect that a year or so after I fully recover, I'll get to do this part again for menopause.)

Any narcissism I have is that I'm a 'born again fit person.' Being so sick for so long despite having athletic levels of cardiovascular endurance and above average strength for a tiny woman really shook me. In July, while I was exhilarated to know I was definitely going to recover and get back to normal after a few months of uncertainty, there were a few nights where I couldn't sleep thinking about how something so tiny had the ability to take all of that away from me. As I got fitter and stronger again, a part of me was wondering what was the point. I suspect that if I'd gotten sick a few years ago when I was overweight and unfit I'd have recovered faster because I wouldn't have kept of triggering relapses by getting too active too fast. My 'narcissism' would have seen me recover fully in record time as a testament to my fitness. "Long Covid" was a bit of a blow to my ego tbh.