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

609 in hospital this AM. That's a really good result, that's made my day.

Hopefully this continues trickling downward now and we get a decent drop on Saturday.

If we come out of the weekend around 600 or less, then things are looking really rosy.

Actual number of new cases in hospital is barely dropping, if at all. But as expected, the discharge rate is catching up; that surge of people hospitalised last week and the week before are now being discharged.

It’s an unusual drop in hospital numbers over 48 hours. The timing of it - this close to updated winter plan from department of health, which has focus on speeding discharges and interventions to triage at community level to reduce hospital admissions;

There are 100 extra community beds accessible in Q4 to assist with discharges. Obviously they’re not releasing Covid infectious patients to these facilities, but possibly elderly that need more time to fully recover.

Paul Reid’s recent letter added impetus.

Makes more sense than 88 people suddenly recovered in 48 hours and sent home.

Where is all this panic?

Can you show it?

I'm in work with ~ 150 others. No panic.

Have been out over the weekend. No panic.

Interacting with extended family members. No panic.

NPHET statements. No panic.

Listening to Dr. Ronan Glynn as I type. Not panicking. Sounding quite positive.

As I said earlier, the only panic I can see is on these threads.

The other way of looking at it is that the CMO has given interviews and changed behaviors enough without putting any further restrictions in place.

The whole vaccine rollout was similar, scarcity led to people rushing to get it, I don't believe this was a purposeful plan, but if putting up with some TV interviews gets us through then so be it (and we'll have the hand wringers giving out about the constant doom and gloom and how dare politicians and health officials not tell us we're all wonderful, being offended on others behalf usually).

Any examples?

And did the tweets actually raise panic? And where?

I think you're seeing what you want to see.

I have felt all along that restrictions should be metrics based.

For example...

If ICU numbers hit # then the following restrictions kick in...

If hospital numbers hit # then the following restrictions kick in...

If positive test cases hit # then the following restrictions kick in...

It would remove a lot of the idle speculation.

I would have thought its perfectly normal for a pharmacy to take CMO's advice on a medical matter, no ? Not liking the man or the advice doesn't necessarily mean its wrong.

I kinda agree with this, but there's always such wiggle room and selective interpretation of rules and information here, I can't see it working in practice. Imagine if the hospitalisations number for restrictions was 1,000 - you'd have health professionals panicking at 999 looking for restrictions, and if it was 1,001 you'd have people saying there's no need, sure we're only just over the limit. I know that's very simplistic, I just can't see it working here tbh. I think it would really lead to the anticipatory behaviour Glynn spoke about many moons ago. Love them or hate them, I think there has to be an element of expert judgement in any of these calls, I'm not convinced a pandemic response can be so "check box" oriented. Trends and background info have to be factored in I think.

Yep the tone has changed.

But to be fair the panic has been from a full on assault from the media. RTE, Newstalk you name it. Anyone claimign theres be no panic only here simply hasnt been listening to a radio or seen a tv in the last few weeks.

It hasnt been helped by our celeb CMO going on every talk show, tv news programme to be questioned multiple time about bringing in restrictions, but also to be fair to him he hasnt taken the bait

I wouldnt blame NPHET etc for the panic apart from the addiction some of them have to celebrity and cant help themelves but as has been the case for the duration of this pandemic the media have been a complete and utter disgrace and ive witnessed what its done to a generation of people in the country, my own family members included.

My assumption is that the "gold standard" is still PCR, but it is impractical to do routine PCR testing of asymptomatic people, therefore antigen fills the gap. If you have COVID symptoms then the gold standard still applies, even if the reality is that you have to wait days for a test slot.

Put it this way: if you had the choice of both, and actually wanted the most accurate result (e.g. if you were visiting a vulnerable relative that you wanted to keep alive), and were prepared to wait for a result, then you would pick PCR.

That's the whole basis of the previous advice about antigen testing - it has been proven less accurate than PCR, which is why PCR is used when accuracy matters.

First hand experience here. I was supposed to be at an end of year get together with underage coaches this coming weekend. It got cancelled a few days ago because of the "COVID surge".

My wife's own staff Christmas party was also cancelled due to someone panicking. AFAIK my own staff get together is still going ahead.

You'd think, but you'd be surprised at how ineffective that is in reality. If hospital numbers hit your magic figure, but infections are doubling every 3 days, then you're probably introducing restrictions way too late. If they hit your magic number but the doubling rate is 14 days, then you're probably jumping the gun by doing anything.

Which means that your metrics for introducing restrictions either end being waaay too low as a precaution, or it is by necessity a complicated calculation: "If (X and Y) or (Z and ( A or B but not C) and D) or (E / F < G * H)"

From a social point of view it can be constricting because you end up lawyering it. If infections have peaked, but your hospital numbers just barely exceed your magic number, then you have a big argument over whether or not restrictions are necessary. And if you stick to the rules, you introduce restrictions for 24 hours until the hospital numbers dip again.