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

It's been here for over a month. Scared?

Sadly a lot of people in Eastern Europe are learning the hard way that rejection of modern medicine has a huge cost. 561 Covid deaths in a single day in Romania (population 19 million) recently and death numbers hovering around the 500 daily.

These are utterly catastrophic figures for an EU country, for any country.

I am a Pole and you must be completely oblivious, who is ruling Poland now

It's impossible to increase ICU capacity overnight. Isn't there wards closed in some hospitals? It's not the lack of equipment, it's lack of staff etc... Lot's of people banging on about our badly run healthcare system etc....

They are correct, but trying to fix that during a pandemic is not going to happen. You could definitely make it more efficient though, outpatient appointments via phone consultation (unless in person is needed) I'm sure helps. But all this is going on when scans etc... are spread out due to social distancing, lack of staff due to having to isolate etc...

There's definitely a framework on that to build upon. I don't like having to go to an outpatient appointment, queue for an hour just to have a quick back and forth with the consultant that everything is ok etc... It wastes my time, their time, and more importantly slows other's getting into the system etc...

Would be nice to see hospitals discharge on weekends as much as they do during the week. That does seem odd from an outsider.

And finally, I was surprised to learn NZ have the same, if not less ICU beds than we do. Guess they ain't a rich country though.

I certainly believe this will be a watershed moment for the health system to finally be put on the correct path in Ireland.

The maths isn't quite this simple. Many people that end up in ICU are from the age groups that have incredibly high vaccine uptake, but also where the vaccines are less effective (I posted an age stratified vaccine efficacy chart a week or so ago).

Median age in ICU was mid 80s last time I checked.

We're not told much about people in ICU any more, but the stories about ICUs being filled with people in their 40s and 50s have long gone. Assuming those stories were true, that's because that group are incredibly well protected by vaccines.

The question of how people in their 80s are becoming infected isn't told much either, for whatever reasons. The official response is basically just "careful now".

Despite the calls of "demonisation" on these threads, what has distinguished Ireland's official pandemic response has been a fear of demonising and of mixed messages, resulting in a thick fug of obfuscation. Good luck unpicking the stats, I've given up.

Sorry to hear this, I've a friend who also was terrified of needles. Maybe talk to your GP and see if there's anything they could offer you for the severe anxiety you have getting this. A 1 off low dose tablet could settle you enough to get the vaccine.

I started feeling a bit crap on Saturday evening, went to bed early. Not feeling much better yesterday morning and took an antigen test which was positive. Awaiting swabs now. Feel like I've been hit by a train and really tired but breathing is ok thankfully. If I feel like this with the vaccine, I dont like to think what I'd be like without it (that said, maybe my immunity has wained, I would have got the vaccine early enough in the roll out).

Because a vaccinated person can also do all those things or none of those things and be safer than an unvaccinated person. A vaccinated person is both less likely to get infected and less likely to be infectious for as long a period as the unvaccinated (even though peak viral load can be the same), you're also 12x more likely (based on hospitalisation numbers) to end up in hospital if you contract COVID vs. a vaccinated person.

A recent study shows that vaccinated people pose an equal risk of transmission as unvaccinated people - so no, vaccinated person is not lower risk to others.

Unless you suddenly dont trust the science?

Which study?

The same studies we've been talking about on the forum for days which does show reduced transmission even in the home environment when people are in contact with others for extended periods of time? (if you read past the clickbaity headline of course).

Here: Community transmission and viral load kinetics of the SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the UK: a prospective, longitudinal, cohort study - The Lancet Infectious Diseases

It shows an increased but non-significant risk for unvaccinated people transmitting to unvaccinated people, and describes a similar risk for all other configurations but does not cite significance tests (e.g., vaccinated people are more at risk from vaccinated people, than they are from unvaccinated people). These findings make Covid certs illegitimate imo.

It doesn't show that, as you should know by now

But where do you draw the line? Banning immunocompromised people from going to any crowded places?

Banning the elderly? etc. Because in terms of absolute risk, these groups are all much higher even when vaccinated compared to younger people. I think its shown that unvaccinated 30 year olds have similar risk from covid as vaccinated 50/60 year olds - so if you want to bar people based on risk, it will mean barring a substantial portion of the elderly

As you know, this reading is at the lower end of probability on the confidence interval :)