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

The issue with using excess deaths is that developing countries have been hit hard by starvation. A U.N. study estimated that there were 228,000 additional deaths of children under five in South Asia in 2020 due to crucial services, ranging from nutrition benefits to immunisation, being halted because of Covid measures. That doesn't account for any adults that would have been affected by the same things.

While it's fair to say that India's Covid death numbers probably lack accuracy, I think it's a stretch to say that they're out by more than 3.5 times. Even if they were out by that unlikely amount, that would bring India's deaths per million population on a par with Ireland's, which still doesn't paint the catastrophic picture that the other poster was imagining.

3 leaders/sub-committee today, Cabinet tomorrow and NPHET I think is on Thursday.

Yeah and I'm agreeing... I think October was the turning point last year

If two teachers are out sick a class will miss out on 2 classes that day. You don’t get ‘locked in a room for an hour’. You go to the classroom and you catch up on homework and other studies while another teacher supervises. Or else they would print something out 30 times and tell the class to work on it themselves. Its not a big deal

Pat Kenny wants to mask two year olds and I vaguely remember him musing about mandatory vaccinations for all age groups.

He's a lunatic.

If the government cave in to teacher pressure and close the schools then you can right off the first half of the year in Ireland. We'll be all about "abundance of caution" and be ultra slow in reopening schools and other parts of society. This week is critical in how soon we can leave Covid behind. If the "abundance of caution" thinking wins out then it'll be a grim few months.

There is something planned for the 22nd in Dublin I believe.

Yes but my point is if theres no one to supervise because of the ridiculous isolation rules what do ye do?

Like ive been saying thats where secondary is a little bit trickier. Class teacher not available and no sub then they should be at home for a few days and be taught online.

I might have my dates mixed up, fully open to correction here but if my calcs are correct we will have had 2 weeks of whatever NPHET reimpose at that point so you might be right

I only know about the 22nd as I was told over the weekend that it is happening.

If being the key word there. The point we are all making is that a blanket closure or staggered reopening of schools isn't needed.

If a caretaker can't be found to keep an eye on a bunch of teenagers for 40 minutes then there are numerous other options that should be considered before closing the entire school system

It has been a long time since I was in school but I remember in Secondary school if the a teacher for a subject was not in then that class would be a free period where we were sent to library and we did homework or whatever needed to be done. I remember one year in the school a teacher we had for a subject was out for the year and those 5 classes with that teacher each week were free periods. Have things changed?

If not perhaps AIER and their "Senior Resident Fellow!" not wishing that puff piece would disappear, as their stock in trade is publishing such scientifically baseless articles, I`m getting the distinct feeling that you and one or two others here would be more than happy at this stage if it had.

He was, if you will excuse the term, talking absolute bullshit, (as are your attempts to validate it), where even the most cursory glance at data available when he penned that piece of nonsense would have shown there was nowhere "that after 70 days the coronavirus declined to almost zero". Case numbers and deaths continued to grow on a continuous basis, and at a higher rate for those that initially played around with the policy proposed by the GBD sponsored and promoted by the AIER.

There's no cabinet meeting today I believe, it's the 3 party leaders meeting today. Dept of Ed separately meeting teachers unions etc

Cabinet has a regular meeting scheduled for later this week according to reports.