Relaxation of Restrictions, Part XII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

RTE are socially conservative with a conservative/generally older audience and have made a fortune from Covid coverage and advertising.

I don't watch RTE much myself though. Are TV3 doing the same thing on their audience shows?

Lockdowns work when used properly, go early, go hard and most importantly end them quickly, we decided to go hard and let it last for almost 2 years and sit watching numbers increase to unacceptable levels before we did anything about it

The big question is would the waves have been the same if there were no lockdowns? I'd think yes - but there's obviously no proof of it

Official death toll stands at 7,087 people, will we ever count the ones that died because of our restrictions? The alcoholics and addicts who couldn't meet their sponsors, the undiagnosed cancers not too mention mental health

Luke O Neill in the early days made the point that restrictions cause stress, stress weakens immune systems, COVID is worse in people with weaker immune systems, a vicious cycle.

Similar to the "plan b" England had last Christmas there we might have them mandated similarly in the future. Not sure how much use they'll be but political optics will play a role before scientific evidence

If you only open borders to other Zero-Covid nations, and every nation chases zero-covid, bye bye goes the virus... Of course such a feat is impossible but in theory it would work

I have to admit, I think the blonde idiot in downing street got it right last August, although I didn't think so at the time. Lockdown (to give the health service a chance)-vaccinate-re-open

In that case will the deaths from Sweden versus others be recalculated with lockdown deaths counted as pandemic deaths to see who the real "success story" was in the league table of nations.

One hospital in Dublin alone, the Mater, reported a 40% increase in liver-related deaths. I'm confident there was no big increase in people drinking themselves to death in Sweden because why would there be.

I saw an article in IT the other day about Ireland's still-raging 'obesity epidemic'.

So Irish people still aren't bothered living healthy lives even after spending the guts of two years in lockdown to dodge the consequences of unhealthy living.

We all know the score there. We're highly funded but the money disappears into a black hole, welcome to Ireland

The legality of all remaining COVID-19 measures ended on March 3rd and the legislation underpinning them expired at midnight on the night of March 31st.

The requirement for what remains, namely self-isolation requirements and masks in healthcare settings are advisory, not legal. The fact that they remain advisory effectively means most employers will give you time off to isolate and all welfare supports to allow you to do so (PUP for example) remain in place

nothing compared to what we would have had with the failed and bombed hard let it rip response.

vaccines and omicron made allowing it to run through possible but before hand it was never going to happen as it would have crashed the country as a whole for nothing.

not really funnily enough.

the industries and sectors that keep the show on the road kept going more or less without issue.

don't get me wrong i am glad we are out of the lock downs but if they were still needed we would have been fine.

Er no. If lockdowns were still needed and were permanent we certainly would not be fine on all levels of issues it would cause longterm and not just to the economy. To say we would be fine is delusional.

Exactly! I've been to the first three of the '22 ones and the rest are yet to happen. At the last gig I was at, I was chatting to a fella I knew from years ago who was working behind the bar. He used to have a job doing sound in various venues around Belfast but all that stopped with the lockdowns and it's struggling to pick up again. He was telling me that The Odyssey venue in Belfast no longer has a rigging team for lights and sound as they all left the business and are doing other things. It's crazy to think that longer term lockdowns could have been sustained without completely crashing the economy.

A gig I was planning on heading too next week was postponed today due to covid so its definitely not over in that Industry (as well as many others)

Nice to see it back up and running. Those Ed Sheeran gigs were everywhere in the media and looked very much 'pre covid life'

Yeah it was so harsh and a little bit insulting. That festival last summer where they looked like 'pigs in a pen' was some farce

Tbh the 3Arena and other indoor gigs at the time were grand and involved mostly 'mask wearing at all times, limited numbers in the foyer area and no standing allowed'. The mess of the 8pm close was really unnecessary and ruled out a lot of events

There's definitely little pockets of it. I was down in Fota recently. The hotel still had a few covid protocols in place - number limits in the spa, pre-booking system in place, etc. The wildlife park still had the signs up everywhere, various things closed or postponed due to covid, etc. I suspect a lot of these things are being kept in place because they don't actually have the staff to resume full operations, but it's better PR to talk about safety.

It was kind of weird, like stepping back in time 6 months.

nope, not a totally over blown situation at all.

the response was necessary and proportionate and the evidence backs it all up, yes some things were got wrong, some understandable and some outright stupid but the strategy of minimising virus spread has been shown to be absolutely correct.

it's you and the others spreading misinformation still dispite the fact we are back to normal who got it wrong, were always going to be wrong, and were quite rightly ignored and dismissed as it should be.