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

There doesn't really appear to be any exit from this, does there?

I mean, the current vaccines are pretty effective but they're not providing sterilising immunity, so they're a very useful tool for management and will clearly reduce serious illness and death quite dramatically, but not a silver bullet. The virus seems to be highly adaptive and capable of getting around our immune systems.

Social measures like lockdowns are crude, incredibly expensive, unpleasant and disruptive and have an impact but at huge cost both economically and in terms of lifestyle.

I'm still not really seeing the exit strategy - rather a long hard struggle with this for years to come.

Hopefully the next generation of vaccines, maybe the whole virus based ones, might offer sterilising immunity potential, but it's really starting to look like we've a protracted period of being lumbered with this virus for a long time to come.

What's worrying me is that we're not adapting. Things like ensuring public buildings, particularly schools, are properly setup to deal with airborne viruses e.g. putting in heat recovery filtration on a large scale and making HEPA filters as common place as radiators, seems to be where we should be headed, but we're still seeing it like as if it's going to be ended any month now.

This is rolling on nearly 2 years at this stage, and while we've improved the situation, we're still pretty much mired in it and I don't think we (or most countries) are being remotely realistic about what is ahead.

There's still a lot of head in sand type policy making going on and hoping we'll just all wake up one morning and it will have mysteriously gone away.

yes, this is it. And we shouldn’t ever be considering a return to any lockdowns in any part of the economy.

The way forward is i) sorting out or health system (never going to happen), ii) enhancing ventilation and filtration etc in our office, social, retail and public buildings (will happen eventually) and iii) personal responsibility in which people stay home if they don’t feel well (which could and should happen now and in perpetuity).

In the meantime rely on better treatments (improving all the time) and new vaccines (unlikely to ever end this). But, other than that, we just get on with our lives

The reality outside boards.ie is way different. People are getting on with their lifes, pubs are busy, people are attending sports and social events, meeting friends, holidaying etc.

Yes, it will linger for a while and some people will die unfortunately but for most it's essentially over, me included.

In town last night, no one was discussing it, it was the usual sports and family stories. We're vaccinated and we've moved on.

Yes the vaccines protect vulnerable people and have saved many of their lives for now.

I didn’t say vaccines would get us out of this. They will not. But nor will restrictions. We are just along for the ride now and hopefully treatments will continue to improve, meaning that those admitted to hospital are discharged sooner. And vaccines will continue to limit serious illness.

As for case rates, they will be what they will be from here. Hopefully people, if they don’t feel well, will stay home…..that’s part of our work culture that has to change

That is true, you did not say vaccines would get us out of this, that was another poster.

I agree work culture has to change, not going into work feeling sick, we need focus on treatments and better ventilation. I would add we need to improve our health system. 400 and something ICU beds for a population of 5 million.

You’re missing something.

CO2 concentration is used to show air changes / build up of stale air. If you’ve an occupied room, as people exhale the CO2 is analogous to everything else in the air that’s being expelled from their breathing.

So high CO2 = poor air quality.

It’s an extremely simple and effective way of knowing when you need to ventilate a room.

There’s no practical way of measuring viral concentration in the air as the particles are so tiny they’re not easily detected, but you can use measures like this to show when you need to get air changes moving.

Just on this - the UCD architect has been “attacked” (I’d rather say challenged) on Twitter as she is part of an extremist group (ISAG) who have constantly used children as emotional pawns in their bizarre push for extra restrictions, extra anxiety, and let’s be honest, extra airtime for them (masks in schools, wanting schools closed, saying kids will die).

She May be an expert in her field, but any credibility has been long lost as part of that group, given one of their self stated goals is to stoke anxiety and fear in people. Even McConkey distanced himself from ISAG.