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

Short answer no there's been no leak on the time. If there were you'd have most of the media outlets reporting it.

That poster was posting something they heard from someone down the road, the "I heard from someone " line. Someone who yesterday morning wouldn't have had a breeze

What is the reasoning for these rumored restrictions?

We seem to be getting punished for things going better than expected !

In a nut shell its because the health service cannot and never has coped during winter. Its nothing to do with how the public have responded to the pandemic. Approx 94% vaccinated, 1m boosters, this is about controlling the population to hide the HSE's failings.

Some posters think it is all about the Irish wanting to go out and get pissed for the month of December,but look at the knock on effect of restricting hospitality. The food producers are effected because restaurants won't want the same quantities. Beauticians and hairdressers won't see the same footfall because women(and some men!!) won't be heading out so won't be getting glammed up. The list goes on and on

Needless to say the people calling for hospitality to close won't be affected financially.

And does anyone honestly believe these restrictions will be lifted in February? It will be at least May/June again

I think the issue we have with NPHET is that they are a group of individuals who are sometimes providing their own perspectives and wishes directly to journalists. This is an opinion of a member of NPHET and not the agreed NPHET position.

If this is there advise for a few thousand cases its not hard to see where we are heading if there is a spike with the new variant.

Brilliant! Covid will provide academics with so much fascinating data on human behaviour.

Very simply because we have a health service under pressure in winter.

Now we have always had a health service under pressure in winter, every winter, for decades. A health service thats awash with huge sums of money, where over 670 non medical staff btw all earn over €100k a year. A third world health service receiving top level first world funding.

The thing is despite the health service being under pressure this winter, and well every winter (have a google and check how bad things have been over the years before COVID) we have now allowed it to be normalised that rather than holding people to account and demanding better its ok to restrict huge swathes of the public, to assign blame to everyone from the pubs to primary school children.

And not only has it being normalised, its been viciously pursued and pushed by the media in the country practically 24/7 and not only accepted by the people but in a lot of cases actually demanded.

Yet more speculation posing as fact from NPHET. It remains to be seen how the government deal with this advice. The only positive is that it's still at least 2 weeks off the Christmas ramp up so that people can get over their annoyance with whatever is coming. Either way there will be praise for people when it turns out not to be as bad as imagined.

As the alarm bells clang loudly, hospitals down 17 to 528 this morning!

Close everything up, 528 is too close to 666!

Open your eyes people!!!

I have a feeling this is going to be nearly all advice rather than rules. Unfortunately businesses get reamed either way. If the public health "advice" is tables of six, then a business isn't legally obliged to follow it, but an insurance company will use any excuse to pull insurance and a public health inspector with a grudge could shut you down.

They're terrified of having the same thing that happened last year, but the conditions are different from every perspective, not just vaccines. There's less "pent up" socialising demand at the moment. Last Xmas pubs opened in December, and everyone knew it was at best a four-week thing. Compressing a whole lot of socialising into the first 3 weeks of December. That doesn't exist any more.

People are genuinely more wary of large indoor parties now. There isn't going to be an All-Ireland final two weeks before Xmas.

More people are sick from non-Covid illnesses this year. This is making people reconsider their choices, and cancelling meet-ups or meeting outdoors. Again because they know they can see the person another time and they aren't going to be in lockdown in January.

I just don't think any of this is being factored. Lumen describes perfectly what they're doing; looking at everyone else and panicking rather than taking stock of what we have.

Realistically they should be pushing the "personal responsibility" line, like they claim to be doing. But they're not. They're issuing "advice", but really specific "advice".

And the problem is that the people involved in the riskiest behaviour ignore the advice anyway, others who already protect themselves, will follow the advice, even though they don't need to. And they'll do it through gritted teeth. Some may choose to say "**** it, I'm protected, why should I continue to restrict myself".

If they asked people to simply consider their actions for the next month - meet outdoors if at all possible, ensure good ventilation if meeting indoors, avoid large crowds indoors, do not meet other people indoors if anyone in your house is sick - that would provide a much more solid message to people without coming across as "punishing" the people who already done everything they can and given everything they can.

While on paper, the issuance of advice is still "personal responsibility", it comes across as being hard rules and not allowing people to make their own judgements. And people are sick of it.

Am i missing something but once again are the NPHET modeling/predictions of where we would be now completely wrong AGAIN??

And again we are at a much lower level than even their most optimistic scenario.