The Pat Kenny Show

"What Pat should be thinking: why is there no HSE evidence-based explanation detailing how the 5% unvaccinated can bring our ICU facilities to its knees?"

Pat is not thinking this because Pat knows the answer - which is that a country that went into the pandemic with one of the lowest ICU beds per capita in the OECD, can easliy have its ICU overwhelmed by a surge in case numbers. And this might not just be caused by the pandemic - a major accident at say, Dublin Airport, would overwhelm all the hospitals in the Dublin region.

Now imagine high case numbers day after day for nearly two years.

And unlike in previous rounds of the pandemic, elective surgeries were not cancelled this time - simply because "non-urgent" surgeries become urgent if left long enough. These patients simply cannot wait any longer. And where do patients recovering from (major) surgery go? Into ICU.

So months later, all of a sudden, NPHET’s Tony Holohan has indicated they are now starting to gather some of this breakdown data. Do we think Pat will be given pause for thought, possible even want to ask some questions about “the great science"… Probably not. But it's going to be great fun listening to him pretend this is not relevant :-)

I’m going to choose not to make any snarky comments about Pat’s judgement in putting faith blindly - whenever it suits him - in Paul “I’m not a big reader’ Reid, Tony <I’m too kind to say> Holohan and Philip ’Snake Oil’ Nolan. That is how I sleep so soundly at night.

I do believe the narrative is completely wrong on this. The focus has been the problem is with men so it's bound to get some people's backs up. Why does this need to be so expressly stated, as if the problem is inherent if you're male?

Imagine if the same was said about a certain nationality, or sexual orientation or whatever. There'd be outrage.

It doesn't really bother me as I understand how stressful it is for women out walking alone, but I don't think targeting a whole gender is the best way about getting to the bottom of the issue. I'm not sure how you solve it to be honest.

I don't know about this whole discussion about porn, and banning porn (good luck with banning online content). It smacks of the supposed influence of video nasties in the 80's and the banning of same.

I'm no expert but I'd say a lot of this is down to sh1tty parenting, a lack of redirection for teen and pre teen offenders and rotating door, soft sentences handed down by an out-of-touch judiciary for the older cohort.

Personally I would say yes to all those points (although points 1 and 2 can't really happen in the context of point 3, but I think I get your point), although I may not be representative of the general population. Also, it's all about context.

The first point may be okay if that was the original intent of the photo e.g. a model doing a nude photoshoot. Something being sent around without the individual's permission is never okay and thankfully none of my friends have ever done that.

On the second point, I'm not sure what's considered an inappropriate comment. If it's something along the lines of a man saying "look at your one, she's a ride" etc. I'd say most men would say something like that. Many women would say it as well. But maybe you mean saying something directly to the woman? There's a thin line between raunchy flirting and being offensive which a lot of men fail to see. Not acceptable at all.

The last point is certainly not okay in any context. It's hard to say if anyone would step up because each scenario is different. I don't think I would judge anyone (male or female) for not intervening for fear of being subject of an attack themselves. I think that's a general thing though, similar to how many people wouldn't tell a stranger to put on a mask.

• if a female on public transport was being subjected to any of the above, would you step up and say stop?

You got to be pretty sure of yourself wading into a potential altercation with the human scum that uses public transport these days.

Light entertainment this morning listening to Pat's "interview" with HSE COO yesterday...

- The 30% number for incidental Covid was trotted out - but no question about if the HSE are confident or still "kicking the tyres" on that data. 

- No question about why HSE number is so vastly different to the Tony Holohan incidental Covid number. Pat is not concerned that our most senior medical officials are in such disagreement.

- It was made clear that people in hospital with broken legs were cases of Incidental Covid. However when questioned about the nature of treatment for due to Covid patients the HSE COO told us about patients heart attacks and strokes. So it seems that in addition to "Covid-pneumonia" we now also have "Covid-heart attack" and "Covid-stroke". This clearly makes complete sense to Pat and so no questions needed.   

- Of course they confirmed the high unvaxed % in hospitals. But Pat still has no questions about the breakdown behind that extraordinary number. 

- Pat also got in a dig at the guy who accosted him in the park. Such empathy and class. 

Another great week of public service broadcasting by Pat. We're lucky to have him ;-)

"The Australians return a difficult Serb" 😄