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

Still at this

Looks like some people just can't kick their addiction to negativity and Covid. Seriously, get off the internet and go live your life like everyone else around you is. In case you hadn't noticed, the vast majority of the population is doing just that. If you walk into a shop you won't see many people wearing masks now. You can go to gigs, take a holiday, go to the pub, hang around with your friends and that's what you should be doing. Not acting like a dog on Halloween night every time something like this article happens. For now, things like this will happen from to time and it isn't going to make the sky fall in. Much as you'd love it to.

Wit a target date of September (MY prediction) for a reintroduction of "measures" to combat the virus etc,it's unlikely Eddie will get the chance to infect us at all this year? They appear to have begun the 2023 production a wee bit early,possibly due to the CSO's somewhat off-message figures for "Deaths due to Covid" during the past two years.The thrust now appears to be keep the focus away from the significant gulf between the CSO's sub 200 and the "Official" 7000 plus consistently put forward by the DoH,HSE and MSM. Equally,the somewhat odd behaviour of the U.S.A's Centres for Disease Control in their quest to get every 5- 12 years old vaccinatied,based upon a (Pfizer) study of 140 chizzlers from that age group,in the face of increasingly strident calls to pause and await further comprehensive studies before injecting 24,000,000 children with Pfizers best.The Airport queues,somewhat oddly worked against the grain too,in they proved Michael O Leary correct,People WANT to travel,and the majority are not transfixed by Covid fear,so further efforts are required.😉

The media and unions banging the drum for the return of mandatory masks. They'd love it.

Each wave seems to have less impact. Hard to know what we’ll peak at but I would bet my right bollock we won’t reach 1600 in hospital like we did in the BA.2 wave.

However with all this talk of “ very concerning “ at 600 in hospitals I wonder if they have decided never to let it reach 1600 again. I have a feeling they have lowered the threshold this time.

Maybe a possible slowdown already. Hospitalizations only increased by 2 since yesterday.

A drop from 629 to 436 in hospitals this morning? Hardly an error? Nearly a drop of 200!

It's very possible

GP's for a variety of reasons are just referring patients to A&E/hospitals for pretty much everything now. Patient lands and is triaged and whoops happens to have covid as well.

Case numbers and scaremongering goes up as automatic protocols are engaged. But then once they've been treated for whatever they were actually referred for, they're sent home.

A dose of the sniffles is not a concern.

Case in point - after 2.5 years of no illnesses at all, I finally woke to a bit of a cough, stuffy nose and headache on Monday. I didn't run off to the doctor or emergency room or down to the shops for test kits (I've only ever had one covid test and that was as part of admission for a cataract operation up north last year). I just took 2 panadol, had a shower, and got some benelyn day and night and exputex in the chemist.

3 days later I'm pretty much 100% again and have been working remotely (as I usually do) throughout dealing with a major incident all week.

No need for tests or adding to case numbers and "worrying" statistics in the media. Just get on with it... Like we always did before we gave it a scary name!

But as usual I think the important question is if they're there BECAUSE of Covid, or WITH Covid?

“Phew” - Claire Byrne.

Outcome of cases (as I've said for 2 years now) is indeed the important metric, however the WITH or BECAUSE OF is also important given that decisions are made based on the number of these.

What would have happened if you did ignore it tho? A couple of those people might have gotten a runny nose, if even? Realistically you could have ignored it and nothing bad would have happened.

Difference of opinion I guess.

For me the decent thing to do is to avoid contact with people and not give it to anyone I care about. Same way I wouldn't be out and about if a had a cold or any other viral infection.

"the decent thing"

"the right thing"

See, this is what I think it's really about. A desire to show and be seen to be more socially and morally conscious than others, especially "selfish" others. I am not having a dig by the way, but I think this is ultimately what it's become about for some people.

Covid is of little real risk to the overwhelming majority of people. That's just the facts. Yes there are some for whom it is a threat, but really no more than a whole host of other illnesses is to them and yet we don't ask or expect others to stay home or shut down the economy to protect these vulnerable people from those other things.

Also, unless you similarly stayed home or restricted your movements prior to early 2020 anytime you got a cold then it also makes no sense as the same level of risk existed then. What if you gave your cold to someone who might get very sick from it? What if they died?

The only real thing that's changed is that people have become conditioned to be nervous of others in general - from not just a health perspective but even things like safety in general (eg: women feeling automatically more nervous around men at night because of a thankfully very small risk that they might be attacked). I'm not saying that doesn't unfortunately happen sometimes, just as I'm saying that yes people will sometimes die from a virus, but we have definitely regressed as a society and are poorer for it thanks to the constant coverage and fear generated over the last 2 and a half years (never forget the infamous NPHET "concern-o-meter" chart that they rolled out at one point).

Everything in life involves some level of risk or danger. Every time we go outside the front door we are taking the chance that something bad might happen - we might fall and hurt ourselves, we might lose our wallet or get robbed, we might be in a car crash or be the victim of one etc. Yet despite these things (which are a lot more likely than dying from covid) we do it anyway.

Why is covid different? We have 2.5 years of dealing with it, we have vaccinations and stats on what groups are actually at risk, and we know from the outcomes that (proportionally) very very few people will die from it.

In other words, as I said very early on, our level of response is and always has been massively disproportionate to the actual levels of threat involved. We have spent billions, we have damaged jobs, the economy, caused other health problems through inaction or delays and absolutely have we created a culture of fear and anxiety in many.

All for basically very little real reward. I think when we look back at this event in 15/20/50 years we'll ask "was it worth it" and I think the only answer will be "no it wasn't. We completely overreacted and - as I said above - became poorer as a society as a result".

That to me is the real impact of covid, and it's why I refuse to spend the rest of my life living in fear of something that realistically is extremely unlikely to occur.

I can't understand why people compare covid to a cold, if you go out with a cold you might spread it to 1 or maybe 2 other people that you're close to indoors, if you go out with covid you could spread it to multiples of that. Yes, most of those will get a dose of the sniffles, if anything, but do you really want to be the reason a pregnant woman miscarried?

I guess I don't spend my days anxiously worrying about extremely unlikely "what if" scenarios and far fetched "won't someone PLEASE think of the children" emotional blackmail doesn't work on me. As I said earlier, everything in life involves varying levels of risk. We just have to get on with it.

If the pregnant woman in your scenario is that vulnerable she should probably be limiting her own interactions and activities, not relying on "someone else" to do it for her. But to be fair to this hypothetical woman, she would probably be already aware of that and taking appropriate measures anyway.

But ultimately, Covid just doesn't justify what you're advocating for. It's just not that dangerous as was originally feared - that's another thing though. Some people almost come across as disappointed that more people DIDN'T get sick and die, whereas in reality we should all feel very relieved that it's not the "deadly mass killer" it was originally feared to be and that we didn't have "bodies everywhere" when it hit our shores.

Stay home, Save lives #quaranteam

a) How do you know any of that? Ok you said 'might' & 'could' so that way you could say anything. But how do you know any of that?

b) Seriously?

The reason I work from home is because I'm lucky enough to have a role that allows me to do so and it suits me better - I can work from pretty much anywhere if I have a phone and a laptop, and I certainly don't miss the 3/4 hours in the car every day and €400 diesel bills every month just to go sit at another desk. Nothing to do with Covid.

But if I had something that needed doing, I would still do it.

Make no mistake, they will coerce everybody once again into taking vaccines. Too much profit to forgo.

Forget the ‘stay safe’ slogan. ‘Stay free’ is what truly matters.