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

It's going to fluctuate now daily. I wouldn't be getting alarmed over an increase or even too optimistic with a decrease. Its going to broadly probably be in the 500-700 range I would think

8pm hospital situation

In hospital 565 (40 fewer than last night)

In ICU 68 (4 fewer than last night.

A month ago January 9th there was 1004 in hospital and 82 in ICU

So my German daily is reporting about the South African doctor Angelique Coetzee who discovered and observed the Omicron variant first.

She is complaining that when she was certain of the much milder impact of this variant she was pressured by officials to not report truthfully but to continue to report of a variant of grave concern. Interestingly it wasn't her own government or health bodies but European health officials that sought to control the Omicron message. She cited Dutch and British health officials in particular.

She refused and here we are now.

I find that a very concerning report tbh. It's yet another indication that certain powers were not really interested in ending the pandemic but rather in dramatising and extending it.

Edit: Corrected, sorry, she wasn't really accusing governments but 'health officials'. Whether that's the same or not is another matter but don't want to misquote.

Pure public health politics at work. The last thing they wanted in Europe was people deciding it was all over. Given the huge numbers of cases and the subsequent pressure it brought on some health systems, they had a case, however little you may like it. That said even a cursory glance at the SA reports was welcome reading on just how severe it was and you do get the impression that people began to relax anyway.

Be that as it may, but clearly 'controlling the narrative' is not a phrase of 'conspiracy theorists'. Puts a different light also on that BS phrase 'the science' that's always been thrown at us.

The problem is - like in real, small life - once a liar always a liar. Justified or not, 'right' reasons or not, credibility becomes an issue once you get caught with one or two things.

Who says it was lies? What was said about SA, rightly IMO, was while it was great to hear that we needed to see how things went in northern European winter. At the time that couldn't be said and the type of caution we've seen over these two years was the obvious response.

For 90% of us the real success was getting through these two years, as healthily as possible, both mentally and physically. That meant getting ourselves to a point of understanding ,of what was required of us and and of however much of the science that made sense. I really don't see what you hope to do with all of this.

As for CT folks, somewhere in the 6,000 CTs that exist about COVID, there was always a chance that one or two might get close, but very much by accident rather than design.

Antigen tests got a vey bad press initially, mainly because many of them were useless but they evolved very well. As has been said they can be good at identifying the symptomatic but many countries wanted more that for disease management so that was the PCR route. In our case the NPHET belligerence towards them was puzzling and a bit childish. IMO, it's been one of their poorest stances and we could have been using them as early as June of last year as a backup to the PCR system.

I see the normal winter trolley crisis is back in the news. Things getting back to normal in our hospitals it seems.

This all seems to be a bit of a reckoning of accounts on your part, not something that resonates with me I'm afraid. It is/was a very unique event in all of our lives and we got some things right, quite a few things wrong and some of us learnt to ignore things that just weren't important. Post-mortems will emerge from this in order to do things (a lot) better but not to your level of granularity or finger pointing. What exactly will this exposing do anyway?

Being right is not always the best look. He persistently butted into things in a condescending often aggressive manner, when silence was really the right call. My comments apply to quite a lot of academics, Irish or otherwise. Definitely not their proudest media moments collectively.

This is more than a little odd to me, but can allow you’re entitled to your opinion.

For me it sits complete wrong that authorities would deliberately minimise and obfuscate the first-hand observation and evidence of a group of eminent scientists, in order to maintain a desirable level of fear/worry.

I can’t accept that the fact that the population may make autonomous decisions with truthful information provided, (regardless of how those decisions align with public health advice), is any reason to mar the truth in the information dispensed. This is not the way.

Also: Rather than saying Omicron "is milder", the politicians would probably have liked to buy themselves a bit of credit by saying "the vaccine appears to be more effective against this strain as hospitilisations are lower, see!!!"

😆😆😆

She’s totally against what the UK did. Forever restrictions is her fantasy.