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

With last night's 11th-hour announcement of 100% capacity for nightclubs, it looks like for the most part the government have pushed ahead with their original full reopening plan, just with the covid certs still in place.

All the talk of social distancing at the bar, etc., just falls back to the "personal responsibility" message.

Be interesting when the law is published (you know, the law that came into effect at midnight...) to see what is actually a legal requirement and what is just advice.

At this stage I feel with the confusion and general annoyance, they've made it worse than if they had just proceeded as planned. People - Irish people in particular - tend to rebel against rules out of spite, so making a complete balls of this is more likely to have people saying "**** it" than if they had just allowed personal responsibility to be the message. IMHO.

Why do you keep referring to "last year"? Although not perfect, the vaccines have, and continue to, change the landscape. If we didn't have vaccines right now, I have no doubt we would be in lockdown, as would numerous other countries. Vaccines allow us to tolerate a much higher level of circulating virus, transmission, infection, and even hospital admissions.

"Why is it so hard for to accept this is normailty". Ah, maybe, because it's not normal for people to be locked in their houses, restricted to a 5k radius, etc. which were features of the lockdowns. Very abnormal if you consider the behaviour of societies for hundreds of years.

In fairness the Spanish Flu killed about 40-50% of those that were infected, and mainly those in their 20s and 30s... That's something that if SARS-COV-2 became more deadly I genuinely think it might peter out, the fact that if I catch it I could be asymptomatic but pass it to my mother who gets very sick and then pass it to and kill my granny, makes it very very difficult to control

@facehugger99 wrote:

Holohan earns just under €200k. The deputy CMOs earn around €115k. That's not "high six-figure salaries", that's nearly as low as a six-figure number can be.

If you fired all of NPHET and stopped paying them, the Dept of Health would have a whole 0.03% extra (yes a thirty-third of one percent) in its budget.

But sure, don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

Let's not forget NPHET members do not get paid for their work for NPHET, some are employed in the private and educational sector. Obviously some members have HSE or DOH salaried positions.

I don’t think the Spanish was very much under control was it? It was devastating and spread like wildfire throughout the world and killed an estimated possible 100 million. It was difficult to control also when you look at the aftermath.

My point was that in the grand scheme of things over the eons pandemics never lasted and life returned to normal after everyone of them.

Was listening but must have missed it. Who were the culprits?