Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

normanoffside wrote: »

With several FF TDs now calling for NPHET to be disbanded, I think their time is up.

Too soon.

Timmy O Toole wrote: »

Ireland has borrowed more per capita than any other country in the world, never mind Sweden

We have the youngest population in Europe, yet the longest and harshest lockdown in Europe.

Still curious to hear what could have been done differently tbh

saabsaab wrote: »

Too soon.

Too feckin late, more like

leahyl wrote: »

Staines and Mills out in force again this morning - having up to 15 people at a table in a restaurant is too risky….even though by that stage about 60% (maybe more?) of the population will have had a first dose of the vaccine. This is so depressing.

They haven’t gone away you know

quartz1 wrote: »

Nphet may not be perfect but in calling for their dismissal people might reflect on how we faired last Christmas and January when the Government took the decision to open both Hospitality and Households against their adbice. It didn't go well and Government failed to govern . This period will be remembered when the timing permits a retrospective review of the period. The Taoiseach and Government no doubt are well aware of their failures and now they are very very nervous of making further mistakes. Of course the dismissal of Nphets Christmas advice was following on from Leo's dressing down to Tony Holohan last October. Public opinion took months to force the Government into Hotel Quarantine and now it may we'll be buying critical time in slowing the arrival of mutations while vaccines are rolled out.

People keep saying this as if there was some other great option. Are we really suggesting that we should have stayed in full Level 5 lockdown for all this time? If not, then what?

NPHET’s remit in the context of Covid is to advise the government on how to tackle the virus — that’s it. They aren’t there to think about the economic, political or societal consequences that flow immediately or in the long term from their advice, or to formulate strategy on how that should be dealt with. They are there to say: “here is what we think is the reasonable way to tackle the virus in this current context”. And that’s fine.

Yes, NPHET advised against Christmas reopening because it would allow the virus to spread. You don’t need to be an epidemiologist to understand that this stands to reason — but the government took a decision that was always going to be the wrong decision from the perspective of stopping Covid, but it may have been the right decision in other contexts ... most particularly the context of a miserable, weary population and a chunk of the economy taking the most almighty battering in modern history. That is the government’s job, to look holistically at even the most critical issues and apply balance even where it means that your decisions directly or indirectly cause terrible things to happen — that it is the nature of leading a country. The people who make up NPHET are qualified to make calls on matters of public health, they are not necessarily experts on how to run a country, nor experience of doing so.

The most unfortunate part of the government’s rationale since then however is that they have meekly acquiesced to the “I Told You So” mantra, from which the ‘abundance of caution’ philosophy has emerged. The government has, in my view wrongly, rolled with an apparent presumption that Christmas time is a template which can be taken as typical in terms of social contact and that therefore the risk tolerance can only be as painfully tentative as it currently seems to be — even with many of the vulnerable now afforded a great deal of protection through the vaccines and the now well-embedded ‘Covid etiquette’ across society.

gozunda wrote: »

Its not just about deaths and never has been. A proportion of those who become infected end up with a more serious form of the disease and will go on to develop complications which may require hospitalisation etc.

You say "The risk to the general public now is miniscule."

Not quite.

The report below gives the proportion of those infected who had underlying conditions

"Underlying medical conditions in individuals with confirmed COVID-19 by age group, up to midnight 12/12/2020"

Age group | % of each age group
| with an an underlying condition

0-14 | 8.7%
15-24 | 12 %
25-34 | 16.9%
35-44 | 20.8%
45-54 | 28.2%
55-64 | 36.9%
65-74 | 52.5%
75+ | 59.4%

https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/underlyingconditionsreports/Underlying%20conditions%20summary_1.0v%2014122020.pdf

So we can see whilst older age groups have higher rates of underlying conditions- there is a spread of underlying conditions across all age groups with approx 20% of those aged 35-44 who were diagnosed with covid having underlying conditions and approx 30% of those aged 45-54 who were diagnosed with covid having underlying conditions.

You correctly say that
"People with those underlying conditions were in the priority vaccination cohorts, and at this stage should all be fully vaxxed"

However an issue with underlying conditions in the general population is that many such conditions may be unknown and / or undiagnosed. This is especially true of younger age groups imo.

For example an Irish heart health public check unit - reported that 41% of participants across a broad range of age groups were found to have high blood pressure of which they were unaware.

And we know that something like high blood pressure or hypertension is a risk factor for covid

https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/coronavirus/high-blood-pressure.html

Firstly you are making a big assumption there that most of the underlying conditions in younger people are hypertension o0r something that would be similarly undiagnosed.
From the study you linked, only 22% of people surveyed were under 45. it doesnt give a better age breakdown, however from CDC in America (which would likely have worse obesity and hypertension stats than here), we see that:
7.7% of 18-39s have high blood pressure
33% for 40-59s
63% for 60+

So again, the risk is overwhelmingly borne by the older groups - so even if they did not know about their hypertension, the age based rollout means they will be first to get vaxxed also. Right now we are vaccinating 50s? So approx 80% of all adults with hypertension are likely to have at least 1 vaccine by the time we do all 50s+ with a first dose, which is very soon.

The reality is, that you seem to want to dismiss, is that younger people are the healthiest of all age groups. Some will have conditions, some will die, but the vast vast majority are quite healthy.

For hospital admission data & the risk of being overrun see https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/br/b-cdc/covid-19deathsandcasesseries30/
For every 100 confirmed cases in each age group, hospitalisation rate is:
0-24 1.3%
25-44 2.4%
45-64 5.6%
65-79 21.3%
80+ 28.6%

This doesnt account for the previously mentioned underlying conditions either, which are disproportionately more likely to be hospitalised.

So unless you think somehow covid is going to rip through the younger groups and infect more than 100k people, our hospitals will never be overrun with covid again.

brick tamland wrote: »

I know what you are trying to point out, but it wouldnt be that bad, nowhere near in my opinion

AdamD wrote: »

Ireland have had 255,000 covid cases since the beginning. Its seems beyond the realms of possibility that we would have a few hundred thousand infections in a matter of weeks with 70% of adults vaccinated.

OwenM wrote: »

It's taken 14 months to record approx 255k infections so far, there is no way we could end up with " a few hundred thousand new infections again in a matter of weeks"

timmyntc wrote: »

45 deaths would probably be about 10 deaths to be honest. Possibly even lower. Unfortunately without a better breakdown of data from HPSC we can't estimate to a higher degree of accuracy

Sorry to drag the thread back a bit, I just wanted to point something out.

I'm not going to disagree with any of these posts, they could all be correct. But there's a common thread here - it's all opinion. It what we think "may" happen. And that is as true for my post as it is for anyone else's.

But what's the correct thing to do here? To look at the possible worst-case scenarios (guided by some rational numbers, not ISAG hysteria) and be guided by them, or to say, "It probably won't be that bad, we should take the chance".

Some people of course would prefer to take the chance. Open up and lets see what happens. I have a gut feeling it won't be that bad.

But for the sake of 8-10 more weeks of partial restrictions after 14 months of pretty heavy restrictions, I don't see the benefit in opening up any faster. Measured, sure-footed, and calculated is the only way forward.

seamus wrote: »

Sorry to drag the thread back a bit, I just wanted to point something out.

I'm not going to disagree with any of these posts, they could all be correct. But there's a common thread here - it's all opinion. It what we think "may" happen. And that is as true for my post as it is for anyone else's.

But what's the correct thing to do here? To look at the possible worst-case scenarios (guided by some rational numbers, not ISAG hysteria) and be guided by them, or to say, "It probably won't be that bad, we should take the chance".

Some people of course would prefer to take the chance. Open up and lets see what happens. I have a gut feeling it won't be that bad.

But for the sake of 8-10 more weeks of partial restrictions after 14 months of pretty heavy restrictions, I don't see the benefit in opening up any faster. Measured, sure-footed, and calculated is the only way forward.

Yes but not all opinions are equal. Some are outlandish and incredibly unrealistic - there's no way we will see another 100k infection or anything close given how much of the population is vaccinated already - seeing as we know vaccinated people are much less likely to transmit the virus, all those vaccinaes administered will greatly slow down the virus' spread. Coupled with an ongoing vaccine rollout, it simply isn't feasible that we'll see anything close to that level of virus spread, restrictions or no restrictions.

By your assertion that "its all opinions" you could say the same about modellers, or NPHET or govt advice - it hasnt happened yet, its just some guys opinion. Semantics in the extreme.

I would hope that one thing we can agree on is that re-opening should be based on objective criteria, so that people know what to aim for/expect.

Right now that isn't the case. As far as I know nobody in government or public health has stated what the tolerable level of infection, hospitalisation and death is.

So it's easy to see why some people assume their answer would be "zero".

Sorry if already mentioned:

Melbourne set for fourth lockdown as Covid cluster in Australian city grows

The new Melbourne cluster was found after a traveller from India became infected while in hotel quarantine in South Australia state earlier this month.

The traveller was not diagnosed until he returned home from Adelaide to Melbourne.

Maybe off topic, but has the health service increased capacity in any area since the start of COVID? Or is the only answer from the Government lockdown?
I know you cant fund "live" capacity indefinitely if its not needed, but as we're not out of the woods yet I was wondering if they actually have added anything significant during all this should we end up in another surge situation again?
Thats what lockdowns were initially introduced for as far as I recall

bucketybuck wrote: »

The restrictions of peoples civil liberties should be ending at the earliest opportunity, they should not be in place a microsecond longer than the emergency requires. They are the last ****ing thing that should be subject to some civil servant "we'll chance it for a while longer" mentality.

I agree. And the earliest opportunity is the one where we have some level of confidence that things won't get worse when they do end. We don't have that right now. We can say it "probably" won't, but that's gut feeling. If the actual experts are not confident, then we shouldn't be either.

Turtwig wrote: »

Long covid will likely be a significant impact on the health service and we will have to increase capacity in the health services to cope with it. Otherwise waiting lists for other services will also be impacted. Long covid though isn't really justifiable reason for lock down.

No, and I've seen this brought up time and time again on Twitter. Once you start saying that hospitalisations are low enough to justify wider reopening and that younger cohorts can cope better with higher levels of infection, you immediately have a number of people jump up and ask, "But what about long covid?!".

However, no matter what one's opinion on long covid may be, there is one solid fact; if long covid was the only consequence of covid-19, we would never have locked down at all. Therefore long covid is no justification for any continued lockdown.