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.

I am talking about last year because it provides numerous examples of what Coronavirus can do if you let it run its course naturally.You are only focused on Sweden. Many countries took that approach and ended up in lockdown. The UK initially was one of them.

The result was that Sweden had 10 times the death rate of their neighbours and in the December brought in many restrictions to fight it.

At the end of December they then:

  - limited capacity in restaurants, stores, shopping centres and stopped selling alochol after 8pm.   

- cancelled after Christmas sales.

  - optional masks.

  - closed museums saunas gyms and other non essentials.

  - closed schools.

The UK will go back into lockdown as you predict because there will be serious burden on the health system. There is nothing more too it.

Tedros being a terrorist and covering up cholera is irrelevant. I don't see the connection or why he would want to overstate the dangers of covid.

If there is covid in babies in Africa and the virus is spreading there but everyone in Ireland is vaccinated with time the virus from Africa will mutate and probably reenter Ireland. Hence it is not over anywhere until it is over everwhere.

Take Smallpox as an example. It was eradicated 180 years after the first vaccines and there were many extended outbreaks over theyears and there were many major outbreaks lasting 1, 2, 3, 5 and even close to ten years before it disappeared only to flare back up in the next decade. Covid could be similar. We just don't know.

Why is it so hard for people to accept that this is normality. Pandemics come and go. It is not a new concept. There are people who have probably lived their whole lives in the shadow of a pandemic and wouldn't even recognise our society or what we used to call "normal".

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.

@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.

Our workplace have acted as if the delay of the full return to work isn't happening due to things like this. Back in the office 100% on 26th. Saying "no full return to offices until February" to the newspapers is as useful as saying it to a tree. The vagueness of this "phased return" thing is absolutely silly.

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

People tend to mitigate against all risks, regardless of the size of the risk.