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

And yet, still 93% effective against hospitalisations.

Anyways NIAC approved the boosters, not NPHET or the government. I assume you have an issue with the delay in boosters for healthcare workers? Yeah, that would be NIAC.

The ever positive Dr Favier once again with the doom!!! They need to get off the radio! NPHET had there presser yesterday that’s enough!!

"Dr Favier pointed out that Ireland’s “tipping point” was lower than other European countries because of underfunding for the health service for many years."

And that is the whole crux of the matter in a nutshell .

I remember reading somewhere that the Irish health service was the 6th best funded in the world. I think its just incompetence, laziness and greed is why we are where we are.

Yep , money thrown at the HSE and misused , mis allocated and wasted

Tbh, I think this winter is a write-off in terms of getting back to normal. However, in February when the emergency legislation ends, I would love to see Micheál Martin address the nation and basically say as we are now leaving Winter and heading into two years of this pandemic, we need to learn to get on with things. Covid is going no where, it’s never going to be “over” as some people still seem to think. The vaccines and boosters have done tremendous work in preventing serious illness and death, but we can’t hide from it for any longer. We need to let young people and those at very low risk from this virus to live full unrestricted lives. We will probably all get Covid at some stage, and for most, this is actually a plus as it further helps with immunity. Granted lives will be lost, but we have to be pragmatic here and accept that with any virus, it is going to take the lives of the most vulnerable.

Absolutely. Not “underfunding” though; mismanagement of funds.

Edit. I see this has already been pointed out!

I agree with you up to a point. However some of the media have huge influence over swathes of the Irish public. That in itself can be a huge problem. Miriam O Callaghan on Prime Time the other night braying for restrictions from the minister of health. I am honestly more afraid of this more so than the virus. Especially in this country the damage they can do with their nonsense.

They started driving the narrative of the `unvaccinated` and then all of a sudden the public latched on to it then start blaming the unvaccinated just like they blamed pubs (even when they were closed!), young people, house parties, pregnant women, 5-12 years old's and so on. You have certain media personalities who quite frankly are hysterical when it comes to covid like Claire Byrne, Joe Duffy, Pat Kenny. The problem is they will not facilitate a proper debate about our response to it and never have and they command large audiences who swallow wherever they are fed. Instead of them grilling the heads of the department of health and government about their abject failures despite getting extraordinary amounts of tax payers money to fund it!

I doubt we have other nations where some medics, heads of the department of health continually berate the public about what they need to do and talk down to them like children. There would be mass protests if this happened I believe in other countries but not here as it is a religious/cult like fanaticism seems to have taken over Ireland so much so that nothing else matters. We are far too accommodating with this nonsense in this country especially when we had the longest restrictions / lockdowns in Europe and probably the highest vaccine uptake rate. Especially after yesterdays briefing where we are being told yet again to limit our contacts despite me having taken the vaccines and even the flu jab!

If the media persons I mentioned weren`t fed oxygen I agree I would not be complaining here about the hysteria but here we are. Its wall to wall and I am actively turning off the radio and TV where to avoid it where possible only tuning in occasionally.

I have a couple of nice sports books on the way ordered for distraction😀

I turn down the car radio when the news leads with covid. (thats most days)

I watch BBC news and SKY news to see what is happening in the world.

The other night the top 5 items on RTE.ie was covid.

Nothing on BBC.com and on Sky news covid made it in at No. 9.

All the hype fed by a number of reported cases which we knew was a backlog.

Primetime doubled down on it and went all in on covid.

Totally disproportionate media frenzy, as usual.

And then the usuals on here try to defend it.

I wonder do they endure hours and hours of covid.tv soaking it all in.

So many people here are screaming that we must live with this virus.

I would interpret yesterdays message from the cmo to reduce contacts as just that. They are giving the population a chance to reduce the high infection rates within communities before perhaps considering intervention like the lockdowns before. I think lockdown might be too harsh at this stage but they might order for hospitality to close. In the face of high infection rates they are asking people to reevaluate plans and reduce contacts. Say for example you had plans for hosting a party like a birthday party or engagement party, they are asking people to reevaluate their plans in the face of high infection rates and is it absolutely completely essential? Is there a need to go to the pubs and clubbing every weekend. Maybe instead of going out every weekend, could someone perhaps go out every second weekend. Is there a need to go into the city for browsing and shopping around the shops every weekend. That type of stuff.

They are rolling this back to the population to reduce the infection rates within communities.

There absolutely is and the hilarious thing is the media don’t even realise they are completely out of touch with the general public mood. They lost that sometime last year when they failed to even ask basic questions over the continuing restrictions and bullshit we were forced to endure.

The point is that the risk/reward from the SARS-COV2 vaccines outweighs that of other vaccines we routinely administer to children.

Yet (barring the no-vax loons) most people will happily follow the science for the early childhood vaccination (and openly claim this) yet ignore science for the SARS-COV2 vaccines, it is a logical fallacy that can't be hand waved away.

COP26 is just flavor of the week, gotta give the people a break from the unrelenting misery of covid and beat them incessantly over the head about how the world is literally gonna burst in to flames in like a year, or maybe 100? We’ll be back in to Covid land next week and hearing all about “meaningful Christmas’” and how bad the winter will be for the health service blah blah.