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

Honestly lads ask anyone that has travelled, don't take my word for it. Europe is moving on.

I'll try copy it here, the full article 😉

New guidelines to be published by Fáilte Ireland on Thursday night will allow almost the full unrestricted reopening of the entire hospitality sector.

The guidelines will restore most of the pre-pandemic operations for nightclubs and live music venues, and will also lift the majority of remaining restrictions in pubs, restaurants and bars.

An hour-long meeting between Government officials and representatives of the hospitality industry on Wednesday afternoon was described as “very successful” with most of the outstanding issues and anomalies resolved.

Officials were in a position to reassure nightclubs and live music venues about key issues that were causing uncertainty and concern.

• Government message on reopening: we’ll have to figure it out as we go
• Concern at rising Covid-19 numbers expressed by Tánaiste to Fine Gael party
• Anomalies around nightclub guidelines will be resolved within 24 hours, Minister says

In addition, a number of anomalies that left pubs and restaurants facing greater restrictions than nightclubs after the changes occur on October 22nd, have been largely resolved, according to those who attended the meeting.

Industry representatives and officials will hold a further meeting on Thursday ahead of Fáilte Ireland issuing its guidelines for the sector later that evening. The guidelines will be subject to advice from senior public health officials.

“We are moving in the right direction. We would expect the guidelines to be issued tomorrow evening so that normalisation of hospitality would be restored but within public health guidelines,” said Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland.

It emerged at the meeting that restaurants and bars will be in a position to take multiple bookings for tables and there will also be a provision that means the guidelines for bar service and seating will be the same for all hospitality venues.

The issue of capacity in pubs and restaurants is one of the outstanding issues that has yet to be settled. If those establishments are allowed to return to full service, it will result in the end of the one metre social distancing rule between tables.

Skin and hair flying on the late debate 😂

Stop will ya, you picked 13 days out of the last 18 months. 13 days. So have you left the country or not. Honest question for anyone that has, what do you think.

NPHET will be very much in our lives going forward

You are really going to enjoy January 2022

Was speaking to a colleague today who made a very valid point.

Why, 18 months into this, are we the public still being morally and socially manipulated by the government into believing we are responsible for alleviating hospital capacity issues and the historical HSE mismanagement issues?

Before the pandemic we were all obviously concerned about over crowding, patients on trolleys, and long waiting lists. But we never felt personally or societally responsible for managing this issue, and rightly so.

We pay tax and the HSE and government are responsible for ensuring there are enough resources to go around. That’s how it works and how it should be.

Now in an emergency and unprecedented situation like March 2020 or similar, restricting freedoms was acceptable as a short term measure.

But why, almost two years on, are we STILL being guilted into believing we have some sort of moral obligation to continuously make personal sacrifices to manage this issue?

We are not to blame for this. It might sound cold and blunt, but how has the onus for this been placed entirely on Joe Publics shoulders? Where’s the accountability from the government? Particularly when you consider that they had the guts of two years to prepare and plan for this.

If one of my loved ones required an ICU bed tomorrow and couldn’t access one, I wouldn’t be blaming the unvaccinated, or people going on holidays, or people going to nightclubs or what have you.

I would be blaming the government and HSE for their complete ineptitude at running a functional health system - just as I would have if this happened before the pandemic, when the exact same problems also existed. Yet we never blamed ourselves then.

I accept things are worse now, but even when the pandemic is completely behind us we are still going to be in a dire situation with waiting lists and elective surgeries from all the backlogs from the lockdowns.

We need to start ramping up resources for that now too, but once again we’re asleep at the wheel. This country infuriates me.

Which Scandinavian countries are you talking about, those that used restrictions same as we did, or the one that has multiple deaths of the other three combined that you were so adamant we should have been copying by chasing natural herd immunity ?

This sums up our problem in a nutshell

Ireland has half the ICU capacity per capita of the EU average, despite us being one of the richest EU states. Ireland has ONE QUARTER of Germany's ICU capacity per capita. We've known since March 2020 that the biggest issue facing the country is hospital capacity. The whole reason for lockdowns was to prevent the hospitals becoming overcapacity - flatten the curve etc.

So you might assume given the above we'd be throwing euros at the problem, right? Given how many billions lockdowns cost, and how damaging they are to society?

Wrong. In the budget two weeks ago: "The minister said €10.5m has been provided for 19 additional critical care beds in 2022, bringing the total ICU beds next year to 340". Thats not a typo unfortunately. We're planning on adding 1.5 beds a month...

This government is doing everything it can to blame the 5%~ of adults not vaccinated for the crisis right now fast approaching us. But even if we had 99% vaccinated we'd still be facing the same crisis, just two or three weeks later - enough fully vaccinated people are still landing in the hospitals.

Its pretty clear the government initially banked on lockdowns beating covid. And then banked on vaccinations beating covid. So never properly invested in the hospitals when they had the chance. Which has resulted in us now facing another disastrous winter.

It just boggles my mind why no journalists are holding them to account over this. Its one of the biggest failings of an Irish government ever, and nobody in the press has dared to mention it yet.

He is French is he not, so who was he referring to as "us" ?