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

At the back of this is an obsessive fear of the health system collapsing, it won't. NPHET too seem to have convinced themselves their models are gospel, even if nobody else is. They do look like they are convinced that 400,000 cases are coming this month and that is where these well-considered pieces of advice are coming from.

Presumably he's referring to them having nearly twice as many deaths per capita overall.

He's lost the plot completely. All kids to be masked up is his daily mantra at this stage.

"I don't recognise this court!"

"Why not?"

"You've had it decorated!"

I miss Morecambe & Wise

Hospitals down 1 at 578.

I really don’t think the government thought it would last this long that’s why they went with the PUP and wait for vaccination.

But that policy didn’t work as they planned and now they are broke and still have a covid issue. So now they need to be seen to do something anything. But while this is happening the subsidies for the hospitality sector run out today, PUP has been reduced, Antigen tests won’t be subsidised, no filters in the schools, no extra ICU that was promised until next year.

We we’re so cautious we kept restrictions right through summer and opened in winter two years in a row and all of this is excepted by people.

I wouldn't say we're broke. Economy is the second fastest-growing in the EU and there's effectively too much money sloshing around world markets at the moment. Countries are practically being paid to take loans.

The main issue as I see it is a government attempting to forge a path that won't trigger a general election. A new lockdown is the end of this government. Even the reintroduction of real restrictions could do it; like closing pubs.

They know that if hospitals get overwhelmed then they are morally/socially/humanely required to introduce restrictions one way or another regardless of the political fallout. But they want to do absolutely everything they can to avoid that. Which is why we have this absurd clipping away at the edges in the vain hope that it'll be enough to avoid real restrictions.

Yep, Pat Kenny has lost the plot completely. Unfortunate, because I used to enjoy listening to him.

Today he proclaimed it was unfortunate that members of cabinet were most likely too busy to listen to his radio show and are missing out on valuable expertise from Luke O'Neill and Kingston Mills as a consequence.

At least it raised a chuckle for me. And no, he wasn't saying that tongue in cheek.

I’d agree with that as well and there is a lot of money around but when you are spending billions on PUP and subsidies that “free” money won’t last long. Hence why they are all been dropped now and not been carried on even though hospitality still has restrictions.

My own personal opinion is that we will have these restrictions over the winter months but will be opened much quicker then last year and any restrictions that get brought in from then on in will be minor and area specific without lockdowns until we eventually just get on with living with covid and it’s not on the headlines every day.

Kind of like how England are doing it at the moment.

We will know when this is getting close when you see the media turning against the government policies when they realise the tide is changing their narrative will change to. At the moment their is nothing but covid covid covid.

Only to NPHET. We've had thousands of daily cases for months. Every day that we don't get anywhere near their models is a day when we are not going to see the health system collapse.