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

Without vaccines COVID is a mild illness for the vast majority of people. Without vaccines there is almost a negligible risk for under 18s to end up in hospital. Without vaccines under 40s had three times the mortality rate from suicides than from COVID. These are all facts. With vaccines I think it's clear that COVID is a cold for everyone.

Masks on the other hand; maybe in a properly worn context; putting a medical grade mask on, properly, not touching it or removing it then disposing it when safe to do so and replacing it with a fresh mask in the same manner, there would be some benefits. But people wearing masks they maul as they put on, don't wear correctly, remove and put in their pocket in order to reuse later and that are made of the same material your socks or t-shirt are made of render them utterly redundant in the vast, vast majority of cases when they were work in Ireland the last two years. Therefore, to accept a flimsy bit of cloth and not force people to wear proper masks correctly, there was no point to them other than to use them as a symbol. If people see others wearing masks they were more likely to take COVID seriously than if they did not see people wearing masks, because there was no physical evidence visible from the naked eye that there was a pandemic. But that was because it just wasn't very deadly to the vast majority of people.

For the first time, my wife has COVID right now, just tested positive today. She has cold symptoms and tested positive on a few antigens. She may as well have the flu for the worries or extra precautions she is taking; just bed rest and fluids is what she'll be doing. I have no symptoms so won't obviously get a test, especially now I see the Dept of Health has stopped reporting daily case numbers. Quite clearly we just have to get on with life and stop focusing on COVID, especially with little or no symptoms.

So this is what one of the key Covid experts actually does:

Extraordinary that radio, tv and print media gave this ‘expert’ a platform.

Any opinions on this? I’m guessing and hoping that due to Irelands massive infection rate of BA.2 and our good vaccination uptake that BA.4/5 shouldn’t pose much of a threat? It seems to be only an issue with BA.1 and the unvaccinated.

Not sure where its coming from, but there has been a noticeable increase in mask wearing in my local Dunnes in the last week. Easily over 50% wearing masks this morning, across all age groups too, not just elderly who may be weary of being vulnerable.

That's straight up money laundering

Given that the low birth rate caused in China by the 'One-Child Policy' means that the Chinese government is struggling with care for the elderly, why is Xi Jinping obsessed with maintaining a low death-toll from Covid? One would have thought that, given that he is a dictator who is proud of Mao's legacy, he would have been delighted if the disease had killed many of his country's elderly people.

Looking at footage from China, the term covid theatre springs to mind. Given what we know about the virus now, to see workers in haz chem suits spraying streets with disinfectant is bizarre. Also their policy of putting the sick, particularly the elderly in quarantine centres to control the virus is surely exasperating their death rate. All seems very strange but understandable given the regime they live under.

What’s he on about today? The nice low numbers in hospitals?

Agree, liked pre-2020 Pat. Had never heard of Luke (or thankfully his "I was depressed when my children were born" media confessional spiel).

Was bizarre recently listening to Pat congratulate tough-guy Luke on journeying to distant war-torn (unvaccinated!!!) lands with medical supplies. It was only days prior that they were banging on about risks of unmasked people on the Dart. I'm probably not understanding all the "Great Science" from the NT advertisers. As you were.

Interesting research - if you are still hand sanitising there's probably not much point.

Insanely frustrating to see those clowns finally admit what was obvious in March 2020.

Covid death's were primarily those were end of life patient's, up to 2/3rds of death's according to McConkey

For those not very unhealthy, or very overweight, a test was usually required to know if they had it.

Healthy people with "severe symptoms" were usually easily identified by their views of Covid online.

And the primary cause of excess deaths was our public health experts sending Covid patients to nursing homes. Now do we expect the Covid review taskforce to comment (prosecute) on that, probably not.

Just a recent personal observation: some doctors I know have gone very very quiet now that the media circus has moved onto Ukraine. They can't rationalise how they've been dropped when only a couple a months ago they were depicted as our saviours selflessly saving lives on the front lines. This is causing them to question what has been going on which is great.