Covid cert and public pool and gym

Where did we get them in March 2020 when we took over private hospitals and city west hotel? Where did the U.K. or the U.S. get the extra capacity when they constructed nightingale and field hospitals which were dismantled because they were never used.

Point is that if you’re health service is at risk of being overwhelmed you increase capacity not impose lockdowns that are worse than the disease they’re trying to prevent.

Rather than balkanise a section of society that has broken no laws we should be asking why the health service hasn't increased icu capacity after 2 years and billions of funding???

At exactly what point in 2020/2021 did ICU's become this sacred cow that we needed to shutter the country and the economy at all costs for a pathogen so lethal that only 99.8% of those infected will survive? ICU's and hospitals in this country have been "overwhelmed" for every winter of my adult life, there were more people on trolleys and waiting on wards in 2018 that there has been at any stage during the pandemic.

Coincidentally, a Professor of IC medicine from St James was just interviewed on Ireland Am after the 7:30 am news.

Some of the standout lines:

• Study of 40k patients treated in ICUs and IC beds set up outside ICUs showed that there was a higher mortality rate in the IC beds outside ICUs.

• ICUs require custom made units with Drs, nurses, machinery which cannot be set up instantly. It takes up to 5 yrs to plan/build/staff an ICU.

• People who think ICUs can be set up anywhere is like thinking a surgeon should be able to perform an operation outside a theatre, on a ward.

It should be up on the Virgin player later for you to inform yourself.

It should come as no surprise that there is a higher mortality for patients in Intensive Care, if they are in IC then they are either very ill or badly injured.

Point is that the ICU capacity has been a know issue for at least 15 years. This is from 2007... 'Massive' shortage of ICU beds (irishtimes.com)

What amazes me is how people like yourself have blind faith in the same group of officials who have mismanaged the health service for decades, squandered billions without any real improvements being delivered and stumbled one crisis to the next. That's where your focus should be, not on the tiny minority of people that we are excluding from public life who have broken no law or committed no crime.

Why the hyper focus on ICU's and the refusal to consider or value the severe costs of COVID restrictions in the name of protecting ICU's which have been "overwhelmed" for decades? Why are ICU's suddenly something we must protect at all costs including closing businesses, restricting travel and preventing un-vaxxed from participating in public life?

Who is afraid of the unvaccinated?

Firstly, you and I don’t make the rules, but we must follow them. I am not afraid of catching Covid from you, but you have chosen not to be vaccinated. The rules say I can enter, you can’t, so that’s tough luck for you.

Vaccinated people clear the virus more quickly than those who are unvaccinated due to the effect of the vaccine on the immune system, so are less likely as a result to be carriers of the virus. Transmission rates made be broadly similar, infective periods are shorter in vaccinated people though if they recover more quickly. There is little doubt that vaccine rules are designed to push people into getting vaccinated, but if you choose not to protect yourself, then exercise outdoors.

You think Covid restrictions are based on deaths/survival rates? Where have you been for the last 18 months?

There are a couple of considerations which lie somewhere in between transmission and death. I suspect you have heard them and are just on here trolling.

Sean, if you google viral loads in vaccinated people compared to unvaccinated, you will find numerous research articles to read which will answer your question more comprehensively than I will.

Could you be the only person who has not heard the correlation between vaccination and hospitalisation/ICU admissions, affect on treatments for people with other illnesses, severity of illness, absences from work, affect on schools etc etc? I find that hard to believe considering it is in the news on a daily basis, including the breakdown of vaccinated/unvaccinated in hospital.

Like most people, I have no problem with the requirement for Covid passes, I also have no problem with the fact you have a problem with it.

If you are hearing all this for the first time, I would suggest you just sit down with your computer/phone and google a few articles, the information is all there, rather than coming on here and asking why restrictions were introduced, it has been done to death here.