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

I mean if we're quoting family members, I've a brother doing a phd in pharmacology and has been working on covid items since April 2020 (and he's published papers on it) and he doesn't see the need for boosters for the majority of people (some will need it, most don't). You've no way to verify that (unless I tell you my and his name but I'm not doing that) much as I've no way to verify yours.

Very few in NPHET are experts in their fields too. Hell, the thing I do know is data as that's what I actually do and I'd strongly object to Nolan being an expert.

And you are set in your way also.

i don’t think that anything that I could say would change your mind either.

Neither your opinion nor my own actually matter in the grand scheme

Glass half empty stuff again.

It’s ridiculous to say that the reason staff are out is illness. The reason is isolation guidelines.

The poster above tried to make it seem like hospital numbers were worse in Jan 2019. This is not true. Staff absenteeism was not a big issue back then.

Hopefully, if we are all sensible, things will settle down in the next couple of weeks.

Well, 6,000 staff are out due to Covid. I do not have the breakdown of the situation.

If close contacts who subsequently test positive, they can end up transmitting it to all their colleagues. What will we do then? And what about the vulnerable patients that would get sick from the infected healthcare worker?

I am certain that they are doing their best to hold up the health service. I am sure that the government would love the healthcare workers to come to work and to get through the busy lists, rather than paying out all the sick leave

ps hat off to your ICU nurse family member.

Your argument is an appeal to authority (a logical facllacy)- you never stated the brother had any involvement in vaccines, immunology or covid19 vaccines - just that he was going a PhD in a tangentially related field.

Its a weak argument and a weak point to attempt to make - and finally its a pseudo-anonymous post on boards with no evidence backing it, so again, worthless. You could be arguing with an actual expert right here in this thread and you wouldnt know it - and yet you try and pull appeal to authority as some kind of backing for your opinion? Lol

Can we also note that some medical people have been happy to put their names to statements that are obvious nonsense. For example

"A Professor of Anaesthesia and Consultant in Critical Care at Beaumont Hospital has said previously healthy people aged in their 30s are dying each week with Covid-19." This is obvious nonsense, as anyone able to read numbers can tell. There simply haven't been weekly deaths of people in their 30s. There have only been a small amount of deaths of people aged under 44 since Covid started.

Doctors probably have good motives for trying to scare people into getting vaccinated and boosters, but making statements that are obviously pants just undermines their credibility if a security guard who reads the internet can point out that the facts don;t support the statement made.

2.5m cases of covid worldwide yesterday according to Worldometers. We exceeded 1m cases worldwide for the first time on 29th December and exactly one week later that number is 2.5 times the size.

Omicron is an absolute marvel of evolution. The scientist in me is in awe. Once again humanity is humbled by the forces of the universe. We are but a speck floating in a sea, with minimal control over our fate.

Very positively though, worldwide the death rate is taking a nosedive as Omicron kicks in.

Israel are starting to find out that their "keep boosting" plan is futile;

Worldwide we're going to see a pretty insane number of cases in the next couple of months. China despite their success with brutal closures, will also discover that suppression is futile and we'll see them calling in well over a million cases a day at some point, if not 10m or more.

Most countries outside of the west haven't been bothered by this virus. I think they will simply stop testing instead

I hope that we can get back to normal as well!

Let’s take a walk in the hospital and ask them do they feel the pressure right about now. The Kelt, you mentioned that your loved one is an ICU nurse. I am sure that she will tell you how hard the hospitals are working at the moment to keep the show on the road. I don’t know how much more pressure they can take. I admire anybody working in healthcare.

Surely, that’s the rationale for the restrictions. And hopefully in a few weeks, when things settle down, we will return to a more normal way of life.

I just get annoyed that everybody thinks that there opinion is fact these days. I would be pretty annoyed if I spent 10 years of my life working on something and some randomer with no background told me that they understand my field better and that their opinion was more significant than mine

When did vaccinations become futile?

From latest HSE briefing

I take my blue inhaler a few times a year. I have never been in hospital before. I would be classed as having an underlying condition due to my asthma

Just under 1/3 of Irish adults are obese in 2019. These obese people would be classed as having an underlying condition.

people think that underlying condition means bed-bound at home. But it may be as simple as a few puffs of the inhaler in the cold season, or a cholesterol tablet once a day.

So, while the people probably had for all intents and purposes underlying conditions, they were probably for all intents and purposes, healthy otherwise

And way down on the average weekly winter admissions from 2015-2018 for respiratory illnesses which saw an average of c.1,300 weekly admissions.

Our hospitals are in more or less the same place now as they are every winter. There were 258 occupied ICU beds last night of which 90 are Covid related.

There is no Covid emergency here, it's a busy winter with respiratory illnesses like it has been for decades. The sooner people realize that, the better.