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

Hector Savage wrote: »

I was basing my data on ourworldindata site which has Israel as 106/100 people have received a dose, so I assumed that meant 100% has 1st dose, and 6% the 2nd ?

Monster249 wrote: »

You're letting your personal experience cloud your judgement. The death of your family member, while unfortunate, is an outlier and very rare. Once the vulnerable are vaccinated, we can't be in lockdown to keep healthy people safe.

Graces7 wrote: »

Have you seen the latest re new outbreaks and deaths in nursing homes here when they had had their first vaccinations?

One dose is clearly not enough to prevent infection

WHY IRELAND IS IN TROUBLE
Lads,

I've been reading about this virus since January, and like most people, I was cracking jokes about it and did not take it seriously at all. That changed completely when someone explained the numbers to me and explained why we in Ireland in particular are in trouble. I have not stopped thinking about it since. You may not think that we are in trouble based on the number of confirmed cases so far, but we are.

I'm going to write this to you in an effort to explain what the **** is actually going on and hopefully help in the effort. A lot of people are ringing me and asking me if I know anything on the inside. I don't know much more than what is in the news, but I have probably spotted some of the important stuff that you may have missed.

I've been tracking the numbers and confirmed cases in Ireland have been growing by 30% a day on average, which means the number of cases doubles every 2-3 days. Based on those trends, and without the shutdown, there would be 100,000 confirmed cases within a month.

On the international numbers, over 90% of cases will recover. But 9% will be seriously ill, and about 5% will require intensive care (ICU) and at least 2.5% will need ventilators.

The Government has said between 25% and 75% of the population will get the virus. If 25% of the Irish population get it, which based on the numbers above is a very low estimate, that's 1.2 million people.

5% needing intensive care means 60,000 people will need intensive care beds to stay alive.

We currently have 277 intensive care beds in Ireland.

I'm going to say that again:

At least 60,000 Irish people will need an ICU bed to stay alive.

We only have 277 ICU beds in Ireland.

If too many people get sick in a short space of time, many, many Irish men and women are going to die when they could have been saved. Ireland is a small country. This is going to be someone in your family or someone you know. Or their mother. Or their father.

The staff in ICU wards know the numbers. Their representative body released a statement on Thursday, which was in the Irish Times, saying that they know that they are going to be making choices on who gets an ICU bed or who gets a ventilator. They said they will be making "challenging decisions". I'll translate that: It means the staff are going to be deciding who lives and who dies.

It is absolutely nuts, but this is what is going to happen.
This could be someone close to you. Your mam. Your dad. Your partner. Your granny. Your granddad. Your brother. Your sister. Your aunt. Your uncle. Your neighbour. Your friend.

You do not want any of them dying because there was not enough ventilators or ICU beds to go around. It will not be the fault of the ICU staff. If you want to blame someone for that, blame years of governments giving tax cuts instead of investing in the health service.

If you are furious even thinking of the idea of your loved ones dead in a coffin because a doctor thinks they are too old or are not strong enough, and giving a bed to someone who is a bit younger, then good, you are right to be.

SusieBlue wrote: »

This post just came up on my Facebook memories, I re-shared it exactly one year ago today. It has over 20k likes and just under 50k shares, so it’s safe to say it did the rounds.
The person who originally posted it is healthcare staff, as far as I’m aware.

The picture it paints is absolutely terrifying and shows the level of unknown we were dealing with at the time.
With a brand new virus, little information and scary projections, going into lockdown was absolutely the right call.
But with what we know now, I don’t believe for one minute that without the long and strict lockdown (and strict conditions in between), we’d have had 60k+ people in ICU and on ventilators and a couple of hundred thousand dead.

So why are we still behaving and reacting as if this is still the case?
Does anyone really still think that if we lift the lockdown and go to level 2/3 until everyone is vaccinated that this many people are going to become so seriously ill and die?

I remember reading that post last year and sobbing at the reality that this virus was most likely going to wipe out half my family and maybe even a few friends. When they said it was both world wars, the Black Plague and the Great Depression rolled into one I wholeheartedly believed them.
Thank GOD it turned out they got it completely wrong, and that their worst projections haven’t even come close to reality.

When the below was the only knowledge and information we had, going into that lockdown was absolutely the right call.
If the predictions had then came to be when we lifted the first lockdown, then yes, living under the weight of such strict measures would have also been the right call until everyone was vaccinated.
But that isn’t what happened.
So why, a year later, is our response still the same?
Why are we still reacting as if social distancing & cough etiquette are brand new concepts, and that we’ll need 60 thousand ICU beds (which was the most conservative estimate!!!!) if we don’t lockdown?

This also shows the level of hysteria and fear mongering that was rife at the time, again it’s understandable given the lack of information but looking back with the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to see how are some still completely buying into it, if this is what they fear will happen if we ease any restrictions.

We only have 277 ICU beds in Ireland.

According to the HSE there are 287 fully-staffed public ICU beds.

Boggles wrote: »

Nope, NPHET get their remit from government, it's not my opinion.



Hyperbole.

SusieBlue wrote: »

No Graham, I’m showing a clear example of the sort of hysteria that was going around social media at the time that caused the public to give wholehearted support to the first lockdown.
The projections he refers to are correct, at that time the experts believed that without a lockdown over 60k people would need an ICU bed and ventilator. This is why we went into lockdown and this is why everyone supported it.

The virus has now thankfully proven to be way less deadly than first feared, yet our response is still the exact same a whole year later and nothing has changed. We haven’t reassessed or changed our position at all.
That is the point that I’m making.

TonyMaloney wrote: »

The author is making projections based on no lockdown, and I assume he/she is using the best data available at the time.
We don't know what number of people would've required ICU had we not locked down, so I'm not sure what you're comparing his/her figures against?

But yes, as I said, the author had the gist right.

Hector Savage wrote: »

Jesus! That's what you took out of it !!!

Dyson said his company has designed the ‘CoVent’ at the request of UK prime minister Boris Johnson, and promised to donate 5,000 to the international relief effort.

On Friday (24 April), Dyson said that the UK government no longer needs the ventilator, which the company has spent $25m (£20m) developing

Hector Savage wrote: »

There are studies saying lockdowns have made no difference to deaths, and not from "far right hate groups" either, from Nature, mind you the lunatics would probably try and tar Nature as being extremist if they dare go against the narrative...