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

It is hard to see them loosening restrictions at the start of February but I can see some glimmer of hope!

Ok, so that means to maintain our momentum against this virus it will mean another dose of vaccine maybe 5-6 months after the booster?

And then every 6 months thereafter. I wouldn't like to be taking regular boosters though just because the antivaxers wouldn't even take one dose!

The fact in many cases everyone onboard are both vaccinated and recently tested and wearing a mask and in a space with HEPA filtering and where the air is replaced rapidly and where the airline and destination requires you to confirm in some kind of declaration you have not had/been a close contact in the last 14 days. Load factors are way down so fewer people within the radius where tracing would be conducted.

Its probably the safest place you could be...

You’d have to wonder what a lot of lads are going to do when this thing is actually over.

The obsession with PCR test availability absolute madness of the highest order. /S

I re-watched the film version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night and I noticed a few interesting parallels to our covid situation.

The background story is that Lord Voldemort (a Satan-type figure) is returning to the world of magic to enslave and kill everyone and eventually also non-magical people in the normal world. This sets off a chain reaction of panic and misguided political action.

The Ministry of Magic takes over Hogwarts school and start issuing a series of unreasonable decrees, the first of which is to ban magic in order to create a 'risk-free environment'.

One of the decrees is to ban music. Another decree is to ban girls and boys from coming 'within eight inches of each other'. Another is to disband all student organisations, essentially banning students from meeting in groups.

The Ministry keeps multiplying strict and obstructionist rules in order to guarantee safety and recruits students to spy on the rest of the student body. (Eventually the students rebel and all the decree scrolls are physically destroyed and the Minister is abducted by a group of centuars she mistreated.)

Harry is attacked in print by scurrilous media (a newspaper called The Daily Prophet). One of the only Irish characters (!) Seamus falls out with Harry because he says his mother believes the media propaganda scapegoating Harry for the death of their mutual friend (who was actually murdered by Lord Voldemort but Harry was the only witness).

Eventually Seamus says that he and his mother realise the media coverage is so incoherent that it must be based on lies. Seamus apologises to Harry and now says he believes him.

In general Harry is a victim of myopic bureaucracy (he is almost expelled from Hogwarts and has to face a judicial hearing for breaking a minor rule in the act of saving someone's life).

Lord Fudge - the head of the Ministry of Magic - has his judgement impaired by fear, as Sirius Black must explain to Harry who is still a child and doesn't understand why 'the adults' are behaving so irrationally. This chronic fear is what leads the Ministry to blame Dumbledore and Harry for everything that is happening and turn them into public enemies.

They tend to get very quiet when excess deaths is mentioned too. Literally no way whatsoever to spin it.

Funeral homes in Italy were ordered to stand down as part of the first lockdown and army trucks were sent to collect the dead instead. Funeral homes were locked down. Mad how the image of an army truck carrying a coffin is burned into people's brains as one of the main triggers of this crisis.

Wrong. The crematoriums in the region were overwhelmed so the bodies were transferred to other regions of Italy, hence the trucks. And I presume bodies were being burned in the streets and oxygen flown in worldwide to India because they closed the florists?

Sorry, slightly off topic, but you`ve reminded me of one of my favourite bits in Catch 22. Someone has the bright idea of introducing Loyalty Oaths before you can do or partake in certain activities. Of course it gets out of hand and eventually you have to sign a Loyalty Oath just to get your grub in the canteen. In comes Major -------De Coverly, aka Major Blank DeCoverly, he is so fierce some that no one has had the courage to ask him his first name. Anyway he marches into the canteen, shoving the Oath aside and shouts "GIMME EAT!" followed quickly by "GIVE EVERYBODY EAT!" and that was the end of the Oath campaign!

We have been kind of asked to sign loyalty oaths or else by our government in the past two years, anybody know where Major ------DeCoverly is? 😀

Social media images of people being lowered into 'mass graves' in NY were debunked long ago. Bodies are always buried at Hart Island.

Imo you're reacting to a series of shocking and traumatic media images and headlines.

My point is that India is a third world country where there have been many crises.

I can't find the article about Italian funeral homes being stood down by lockdown. If I find it I will post it.

Indians burning bodies is not new - its just that you never noticed it until it was reported on.

Plenty of those pictures from the beginning of the pandemic have been since debunked as out-of-context fakes, some taken years before for other news stories. The piles of coffins stacked high etc was fearmongering by the media to get more views. The reality was not nearly as bad as they made it seem (or as you still think it was)