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

mean gene wrote: »

What email leaks?

Emails between members of ISAG, which included some of the high profile doom-and-gloomers such as Sam McConkey, were leaked last week and exposed a degree of co-ordination between RTE and the ISAG group which I for one find highly disturbing, not least because RTE have been spitting out ISAG-penned segments disguised as comedy or "lighthearted" craic on the Claire Byrne show without disclosing that these sketches are being created by a lobby group.

The emails also show how the group have been intentionally using emotional manipulation tactics through the media to essentially depress or anger the public into demanding Zero COVID, a particularly extreme proposal for tackling the crisis.

Unfortunately, the emails were leaked to the conservative outlet Gript, and the horribly polarised nature of partisan politics these days means that people are more than willing to "cancel" and entirely discard news stories because they don't like the platform they're published on. So they haven't generated nearly enough publicity in my view.

Full disclosure: I support zero COVID and have for a long time, I've always said that if this current lockdown was a proper one like last Spring and not this lockdown-lite crap in which so many offices have found loopholes to remain open when they were closed last time around (the negligible drop in rush hour traffic compared with April of 2020 is all you need to prove this IMO), we'd be able to crush the virus number a lot more rapidly and therefore have a much, much shorter lockdown (particularly amid the vaccine rollout).

So I support this group's objectives, but their means and methods are utterly dystopian in nature and I find them utterly, completely, rage-inducingly unacceptable. Peoples' mental health has taken a nosedive over the last month and part of it is because of the sh!te this crowd have been pedalling.

For example: It turns out that the sketches on Claire Byrne showing this utterly horrific "new normal" for things like concerts, pubs and hairdressers after restrictions are lifted - essentially isolating individual customers in "pods" or hamster balls - weren't just organic homegrown RTE content. They were created by ISAG, after RTE directly reached out to Sam McConkey asking if they'd like to do a piece for the programmes - and RTE have literally never disclosed that this content was being written and produced by a f*cking lobby group.

ISAG were also able to dictate terms to RTE: Gript can reveal that a segment about how to have a “Safe Christmas Dinner”, which appeared on Claire Byrne’s TV show in early December, was in fact, an ISAG idea, and was pitched to RTE by ISAG’s Sam McConkey last November. RTE has never disclosed that it was taking advice about what segments to air from ISAG.

Indeed, Claire Byrne features prominently in praise for the media dispensed in the ISAG chats, along with other RTE presenters. The group has had regular access to the national broadcaster’s airwaves, and has rarely faced tough questioning. Indeed, in the aftermath of Gript’s stories about ISAG this week, representatives of the group were once again on RTE and Virgin Media, where Matt Cooper and his RTE colleagues neglected to ask them any questions about the content of our stories.

Not all media members are as well respected, however, by ISAG. Those journalists who have been mildly critical of lockdown, such as Irish Independent Columnist Sarah Carey and Irish Times journalist Mark Paul, came in for stern criticism from ISAG, internally. Andrew Kunzmann, a leading member, accused both of “losing any remaining credibility” when they opposed, or were believed to be sceptical, of various lockdown measures.

https://gript.ie/zeroleaks-on-their-media-friends-matt-cooper-tries-to-look-impartial/

I'm as left wing as you can get (see my regular comments on rentier capitalism if you need evidence) but this is absolutely outrageous carry on from our national broadcaster and it really is hurting people. They shouldn't be taking direct advice from extremists like Sam McConkey who has been absolutely instrumental in instilling this "long term lockdown even after vaccination" sh!te that's been infecting public discourse over the last month - and even if you find it morally acceptable for them to have a direct line to such groups and air their propaganda, it is absolutely, 100% entirely unacceptable for them to do so without disclosing that this content is created by a lobby group.

Claire Byrne's show has been presenting these sketches as if they're just a bit of homegrown craic dreamed up within the RTE studio, and given the horrific consequences for viewers' mental health (this is in the opinion of one guy whose mental health was seriously harmed by this sh!te, so obviously just my viewpoint) it's entirely unacceptable that content from an extremist lobby group pushing a particular agenda was aired without any kind of disclosure as to where it came from.

Here's an email from Anthony Staines, detailing a meeting of the group in which they apparently discussed ways to manipulate public opinion through, among other things, "looking for ways to increase anxiety, insecurity, and uncertainty":

https://gript.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/ASTaines.jpg (Very big image, it's the legible copy of the image embedded in the following article, which was apparently mis-encoded):

https://gript.ie/look-for-ways-to-increase-insecurity-anxiety-and-uncertainty-zero-covid-document/

There's a whole other section on interactions between this group and prominent politicians, involving intentionally misleading the government in order to push the agenda:

https://gript.ie/revealed-how-zero-covid-activists-deceived-politicians/

I'm sorry, but regardless of where you stand in politics, from far left to far right and everything between, or where you stand on COVID, from zero covid to anti-mask and everything in between, this kind of shadowy behaviour by lobby groups with obscene amounts of influence not just over politicians, but on the publicly funded media which we rely upon to give us the facts, should be something which makes you both angry and honestly a little frightened. It is absolutely unacceptable for an unelected, unaccountable, private group to be allowed to operate in this way with this amount of influence over what goes out over our airwaves and what is brought up in our parliament.

And yes, I'm well aware that this is probably one of many lobby groups which has this kind of influence above and beyond what the general public has, and that is also entirely unacceptable. I'm focusing on this one simply because we happen to have the smoking gun in this particular case.

lawred2 wrote: »

Don't we already spend more on it or capita than most?

Not "more than most", but we're in the top grouping. We spend about as much as Japan.

Our issue is largely down to inefficient allocation of spend. For example, we have too many large hospitals for a country of our size, which means we have way more management and administration than we need and not enough medical staff, which means we pay a premium hiring agencies to fill in the gaps.

A two-tier system contributes to this problem.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Emails between me,bers of ISAG...

Fair play, this is one of the best posts I’ve read on here in a long time.

lawred2 wrote: »

is that not by definition "more than most"?

I didn't say "more than all" or "more than everyone else"

Really my point is that when you take the 20/30 really wealthy countries in the world, we're about mid-table.

That's in absolute spending. As a % of GDP, we're actually way down. About half the OECD average, and 66% of the EU average.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Emails between members of ISAG, which included some of the high profile doom-and-gloomers such as Sam McConkey, were leaked last week and exposed a degree of co-ordination between RTE and the ISAG group which I for one find highly disturbing, not least because RTE have been spitting out ISAG-penned segments disguised as comedy or "lighthearted" craic on the Claire Byrne show without disclosing that these sketches are being created by a lobby group.

..................
.

Do you have any source for that from a legitimate publication that isn't known for far right made up mumbo jumbo?

Brazil variant in the UK

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-hunt-for-mystery-person-infected-with-brazilian-variant-of-concern-after-six-cases-confirmed-in-britain-12232364

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

However, John McGuirk who broke the story did tweet about it, and in fairness the tweet makes a lot of sense - given the defamation law in Ireland, if these emails are in any way doctored or fabricated he'd already be having his ass handed to him in court. Yet ISAG have been utterly silent on the leaks, which in my view speaks volumes.

McGuirk is not exactly the most cerebral of commentators.

Gript can't really be done for defamation since an organisation which is not dependent on donations or sales cannot really sue for defamation. This makes organisations like ISAG easy targets for bad-faith actors like Gript.

The individuals involved could in theory pursue defamation, but Gript have backers with deep pockets, so an averagely-paid scientist is unlikely to be able to muster the legal firepower to take a successful case.

For the record, I disagree with ISAG and I think it's more likely that the emails are real. But "We wouldn't lie, we'd be sued" doesn't prove anything, especially when conservative media are involved.

seamus wrote: »

McGuirk is not exactly the most cerebral of commentators.

Gript can't really be done for defamation since an organisation which is not dependent on donations or sales cannot really sue for defamation. This makes organisations like ISAG easy targets for bad-faith actors like Gript.

The individuals involved could in theory pursue defamation, but Gript have backers with deep pockets, so an averagely-paid scientist is unlikely to be able to muster the legal firepower to take a successful case.

For the record, I disagree with ISAG and I think it's more likely that the emails are real. But "We wouldn't lie, we'd be sued" doesn't prove anything, especially when conservative media are involved.

"We wouldn't lie, we'd be sued" only proves that they haven't been sued, it doesn't prove that they couldn't.

However ISAG or its constituent members absolutely could sue if they have been defamed.

seamus wrote: »

Nevertheless, I'm a little concerned that we're about to see a plateau in hospital numbers. Or at least a slowing down. Last week saw admissions flatten a bit around 40/day. Though that could have been a blip.

We *might* be at 560 by this Saturday. I would like to see admissions more solidly at 30/day by the end of the week though.

Thankfully hospital numbers appear to be back on track. We had 550 in hospital on Saturday, an average of 27 admissions/day for the last 7 days, compared to 41 in the previous 7 days.


Weekly drops;
25th - 30th: Down 454 (23%)
Feb 2nd - 6th: Down 330 (21.6%)
9th - 13th: Down 314 (26%)
15th - 20th: Down 197 (21.5%)
22nd- 27th: Down 196 (26%)

Hospital numbers should be down to 420-440 this day next week.

Longer-term, *maybe* down to 200 by the end of the month, but we would expect a plateau, so that's a best-case scenario.

Short-term, we could be around 130 in ICU come 1st March. Down to ~100 by Paddy's Day, and then potentially around 60 by Easter. Obviously the projections get less reliable the further out you go.

134. Unfortunately much of this reduction is due to deaths. Discharges are slightly ahead of admissions, but there are a lot of deaths.
Numbers above are still holding though.

Overall it looks like we'll be in very good shape come Easter.

All of the doom-mongering about "it'll still be level 5 after easter" seem toothless now. At that stage we will be better across all metrics than we were at any point during October & November. Battered and exhausted, but better.

You don't need to talk in code. Celebrating birthdays at the graveside of a deceased member is a common practice in Traveller communities. Unfortunately Traveller communities have been hit extra hard with the pandemic, as it has in many communities with lower levels of education and a higher levels of disengagement/distrust of wider society.

Pavee Point have been doing their best to try and spread information about the pandemic, but just like house parties in Finglas and raves in the inner city, you can't reverse decades of under-investment in education and institutional exclusion in these communities over the course of a pandemic.

seamus wrote: »

You don't need to talk in code. Celebrating birthdays at the graveside of a deceased member is a common practice in Traveller communities.

Is it?
Or like sulkies a recent invented tradition?

seamus wrote: »

You don't need to talk in code. Celebrating birthdays at the graveside of a deceased member is a common practice in Traveller communities.

Really, new one on me

Turtwig wrote: »

You could just put that another way gript know how to publish material without getting libel action. The question is the reliability of the material they publish.

Should we assume that all other material they publish is reliable because they haven't been sued and lost in court? No.

The manner in which they leaked the material and the screenshots themselves do not lend themselves to credibility. Ask yourself, how much of a leap do you have to make for a given screenshot to back the assertion being made.

I'm no fan of ISAG but a shadowy doom laden organisation in cahoots with the media? C'mon ta fck.

Most likely:
RTE and the other media outlets constantly need scientists available to go on their shoes. Media producers will tend to go with scientists they've worked with before. This is why Luke O'Neill has such prominence. Through the various documentaries series he already had established the connections. ISAG are a public lobby group that any media producer can quickly email and ask for someone to come on such a such show or advise about such and such a thing.
The vast majority of experts for matters relating to covid are simply unavailable. Hence why you get the same faces all the time. It's not a sinister conspiracy.

For anyone really bored with nothing better to do the tv series The Newsroom covers this sort of stuff quite well.

Have you seen the document which ignited the outrage over this? Gabriel Scally sent a document to the mailing list and told them to learn it off, essentially. The document was a long list of extremely dystopian tactics for manipulating the media throughlies and playing on peoples' emotions.

The leak could indeed be fake, but then so could literally any leak given to the media. Obviously if it's fake, there's nothing to talk about here. It doesn't seem to be, though. And if it is true, then this particular lobby group is very much attempting to push a "sinister conspiracy" in the form of intentionally misleading the public in order to scare us into supporting their policies (which I just want to reiterate I actually do support, and have done since level 5 was announced after Christmas)) with RTE journalists as either willing accomplices or useful idiots.

Either way, this is 100% definitely a conversation which needs to be happening. If there's even the slightest grain of truth in this leak, it paints an extremely disturbing picture. That's my opinion anyway. And again, that's the opinion of someone who supports the "stricter, but shorter" strategy for level 5.

RTE has been pointed out by many, many posters here and elsewhere to have been extraordinarily pessimistic in their coverage of recent COVID developments and their predictions of long term misery beyond this lockdown. The fact that this group seems to have the ear of prominent journalists, and the fact that this group has discussed using emotional manipulation in order to further their policy objectives, implies that there's at least a discussion to be had on whether RTE's negativity is an intentional tactic for the purpose of manipulating public opinion.

I wouldn't call this a conspiracy theory when there is an alleged leak pointing directly towards it.

Again, just my view.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Have you seen the document which ignited the outrage over this? Gabriel Scally sent a document to the mailing list and told them to learn it off, essentially. The document was a long list of extremely dystopian tactics for manipulating the media throughlies and playing on peoples' emotions.

The leak could indeed be fake, but then so could literally any leak given to the media. Obviously if it's fake, there's nothing to talk about here. It doesn't seem to be, though. And if it is true, then this particular lobby group is very much attempting to push a "sinister conspiracy" in the form of intentionally misleading the public in order to scare us into supporting their policies (which I just want to reiterate I actually do support, and have done since level 5 was announced after Christmas)) with RTE journalists as either willing accomplices or useful idiots.

Either way, this is 100% definitely a conversation which needs to be happening. If there's even the slightest grain of truth in this leak, it paints an extremely disturbing picture. That's my opinion anyway. And again, that's the opinion of someone who supports the "stricter, but shorter" strategy for level 5.

RTE has been pointed out by many, many posters here and elsewhere to have been extraordinarily pessimistic in their coverage of recent COVID developments and their predictions of long term misery beyond this lockdown. The fact that this group seems to have the ear of prominent journalists, and the fact that this group has discussed using emotional manipulation in order to further their policy objectives, implies that there's at least a discussion to be had on whether RTE's negativity is an intentional tactic for the purpose of manipulating public opinion.

I wouldn't call this a conspiracy theory when there is an alleged leak pointing directly towards it.

Again, just my view.

Gabriel Scally was dropped from the Cervical Check review board in the last week, quite suddenly.

Absolutely great to see the little ones skipping into school today . Positivity is back .