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

Of course it’s important to know . It might not be important to you and I today as we don’t make decisions for our fellow citizens . But its vital to know how the virus is impacting people and how many it effects so that they need hospitalisation for Covid symptoms .

ffp2 available in our local eurosaver have been since the start. it's what I was using when flying in the autumn.

Well I get what you say, kind of. On the other hand if you are hospitalised for some other reason, getting infected by this bug on the top of it will hardly improve your health status in the hospital..

You close schools, you close everything. Childcare for 750,000 kids can't be arranged at short notice, which means at least 20% of the workforce have to be suddenly unavailable.

Throw quarantine and other factors into that, and you force businesses to close. And without a government safety net, many businesses (and employees!) may straight up refuse to engage with the measure.

Any road, the question has to asked of what it's trying to achieve. Slowing down infections (if such a thing is even possible) just drags it out over a longer term.

Agreed yes . But lets say you fracture your femur and need admission . You test positive for Covid on admissions . Are your symptoms at any stage bad enough that you would have been admitted for Covid ?

Or you are an in patient for a surgical proceedure . You test positive for Covid on day 5 of admission . You recover from your surgery and are doing fine , no Covid symptoms to worry about .

Are both these patients counted in the Covid cases in hospitals ? Yes they probably are but are not admitted because of worrying Covid effects

I am not disagreeing with you and I am broadly in favour of gradual reopening but Further restrictions on hospitality will be next to useless. Agree it is a massive and significant step.

To add:

Expect that crèches and schools will have selective closures when the schools reopen.

Why are the EU & Ursula still insisting on more vaccines when all those who wanted one have taken one, including the booster. Most of the population will be exposed to Omicron by Feb which has proved to be a mild strain. If restrictions and freedoms aren’t restored plus Digital discrimination pass kept, will anyone ask questions or keep parroting the EU / Government line. There is no mandate for these kind of measures in Ireland or the EU, the Irish Government should go to the people with referendums or a general election if this continues.

Because in certain parts of Europe uptake is still quite low. Although tweeting from the new Moscow is not going to change minds.

The 148 detected cases do not all be hospitalized/admitted. Think of it as someone attending A&E for something, gets tested, comes back positive, they get treated in A&E and sent home. Or someone needing treatments but not an overnight stay.

The 71, I've no clue where he's getting that from. He could be looking at different figures.

Yes and I am guessing the majority of them are at home despite not being sick.

Like I said isolation rules in hospitals will cause more deaths than Covid.

There's 3 ways of looking at the 71, unfortunately we don't know which outcome is more likely, would be good to know.

1) Admitted for something else - For example my father went into hospital on Monday non covid related through A&E, when they admitted him a covid test was done, result came back negative within a few hours. Should he have tested positive then yes he'd have been included in the hospital numbers for admissions.

2) Admitted with covid but couldn't get a PCR in the community. Someone arrives at A&E with a positive anitgen for example and is unwell, covid tested on arrival for admission, swab back positive, they're included in the hospital numbers for admission.

3) Already in hospital and an outbreak leads to mass testing, patient already on a ward tests positive, they're included in the admission numbers as a hospital detected case.

Unfortunately there's nothing to distinguish between the 3 in the 71, the data isn't broken down to a low level. Like other countries have seen there's going to be an increase in cases being found at hospitals as testing comes under pressure and just by pure chance someone has it when they need to go to hospital. I doubt we'll get a full breakdown that's needed, but you'd think it's something that's simple enough for them to track.

Thanks for the reply.

So, back to my original question, when should restrictions end? If we don’t know what we are looking for how will we know when we reach it? After last summer’s approach do we not need to start thinking about this?

Are the government still on holidays or are they back at work?

Schools, creches and the majority of the workforce are back next week and we still have isolation rules for Delta which need to be changed or scrapped.

The country cannot function with the current isolation rules in place and next week will be a nightmare for everyone.

Surely if the general public can see what is going to happen next week then so can the government.

They surely surely are having discussions to have something in place before next week.