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

More stories that future lockdowns can't be ruled out. How are people supposed to live like this?

An unsurprising suggestion but with so many cases around some people will be naturally more reluctant anyway.

Excellent post. This is something Paddy Mallon alluded to on Prime Time last night. Essentially that lockdowns only kick the can down the road, and delay the inevitable - i.e. we will all be exposed to it, and more than likely infected by Covid at some point. Easy say it in hindsight, but we should have followed the UK model - open up in Summer, let it spread, build up natural immunity slowly instead of overwhelming everybody at once in Winter - which our plan appears to be doing.

The optimist in me thinks maybe the government are privately willing to do this, their reluctance to reimpose further restrictions yesterday might be a suggestion that they are willing to let it spread, albeit in a somewhat controlled manner. However, the realist in me thinks these are just token gestures before the government reach for more extreme restrictions if things spiral out of control.

Well you've completely mis-read the post in the main thread. 57% in ICU unvaccinated according to the HSE stats the poster quoted.

"More recent data on admissions from the HSE today. 57% of those in ICU are not fully vaccinated. (52% unvaxxed, 5% 1 dose).

98% of those fully vaccinated and in ICU, are immunocompromised."

This is true, my childs class used to be a case of we had to invite the full class to birthday parties, not anymore it seems

Sure and we can expect similar advice from other ministers for other activities.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm talking about a "variant of concern". You might want to go and get your eyes tested, you appear to be seeing things. Get your back checked too, you might have strained something with all the goalposts you keep moving.

Any (unsourced) ECDC reports on variants of concern is totally irrelevant. Besides which I'm fairly sure they were aware of the possibility of variants of concern before they identified any.

The word concern isn't mentioned in my post, the article I linked to, or its coverage of Varadkar's statement: "The Tánaiste said when the Government developed its plan last summer it did not take into consideration the introduction of vaccines and did not know about the possibility of new variants of the virus." Not "variants of concern" - neither nor the people advising them apparently knew anything about variants.

Oddly enough, de Gascun was talking about variants back in April 2020. Five months before the plan was announced, which was in September.

There were already dozens of variants by mid-April which is a surprise to nobody, except the Irish government.

And even if we added "of concern" to Leo's statement, it's still ludicrous: they "did not know about the possibility of new variants of concern". Not "existence of" - "possibility of": it was beyond their comprehension that one of the myriad mutations of covid might bemore infectious than the current dominant strain.

Keep digging though. Mind your back.

For those thinking of popping up north for normality, that may be a disappointment.

Tony Holohan's behaviour in relation to his wife (and family) is just one of the weird aspects of being Tony Holohan. His wife was ill / seriously ill /dying / dead and he felt he couldn't be spared from / it was imperative that he go to the most stressful job in the country.

Weird does not begin to cover it.

The whole vaccine regime was sold as being THE solution to our woes. And clearly whilst it seems to mitigate impact, it's been shown to have been oversold. There is a credibility problem now arising, who wants to keep taking vaccines. Some will but many will regard themselves as basically healthy and unwilling to participate further.

It's dismaying that people lap up restrictions and can't wait to jump in a queue for boosters as they have bought the deflection "the virus can't be tamed and keeps the situation evolving".

I got myocarditis from the vaccine.

It was not a big deal whatsoever. Mild tightness in the chest, similar to the general tightness in the chest you get with a bad cold/flu (and presumably covid). Had to spend 8 hours in A and E (purely because I don't have private health care) only to be given some over the counter anti inflammatories. Had I not suspected it was vax related (which it was) I wouldn't have even bothered going to the GP about it.

I had a bad reaction aside from that - I only took it to get a break from Ireland for a week in the sun and I'm still glad I did. I will 110% not be taking a booster shot ever though.

That was in mid October and the A and E was absolutely crippled already, so I now understand first-hand the pressure our hospitals are under. It was like a warzone in there and I really felt for the hospital staff, who were amazing despite dealing with a very stressful environment. They're starting from such a low base already that even the mildest uptick in numbers will have them overrun (just like literally every year pre-covid).

Only difference is now that covid is a thing, the Government can gaslight the entire country into not socialising to PrOtEcT the VuLnErAbLe.

Restrictions are easier than fixing the HSE but the big worry is that the HSE clearly isn't going to be adequately resourced any time soon, so restrictions could feasibly be remained every winter even with an entirely vaccinated population.

If we effectively run our hospitals with a myopic obsession on keeping covid out at all costs, then longer term problems will continue to creep up (like missed cancer diagnoses for example, and I've heard or 3 such cases in the past couple of weeks alone).

Anyway, we're in for another announcement to save Christmas in a few weeks, which will roll into another actual lockdown because we'll all go mad (apparently), then open up again in March/April once everyone is boosted.

I hope not of course but that's my gut feeling right now.

I think that's the closet you've ever got to admitting that vaccines work! (and sincerely fair play on responding to the error on your post).