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

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  • Registered Users Posts: 28,577 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    "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.



  • Registered Users Posts: 12,858 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    Hospitals are there to treat sick people.

    The staff are paid to treat sick people.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,111 ✭✭✭Red Silurian


    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?



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,261 ✭✭✭Gant21


    Just two more weeks and we will be there.



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,577 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    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.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 28,577 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    This is very true as well. For all the complaining that the likes of the IMNO do in the media, they never mention that it's actually their job to treat sick people and one they voluntarily studied for, trained for, applied for, and remain employed in.

    If they aren't happy with the conditions - the pay, the hours, the policies, the precautions, whatever - they can always get another job. No one is forcing them to stay.



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,548 ✭✭✭Micky 32


    Stay home, Save lives #quaranteam



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,704 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl


    Yes fair dues .

    Point is you stayed at home though , and worked from there which was the right thing .

    Do you think you would have necessarily done that before ?



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,364 ✭✭✭CalamariFritti


    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?



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,875 ✭✭✭Irish Aris


    No desire to show anybody anything and in no position to judge anybody as anything Kaiser. Just my personal moral compass.

    If I know I have something contagious I will stay out of people's ways. As I did before covid with other contagious infections.

    And what you call "having been conditioned to be nervous of others in general " I call it "having empathy towards others in general ". From my point of view the key factor isn't how sick one might get (which as you rightly say isn't very likely) but more that I don't want to pass it to anyone at all.

    Ever since restrictions lifted I was out and about a lot in close contact with lots of people (on top of everything I am also a frequent concert goer). I never really cared if I would catch it and I wasn't overly surprised that I did. Once I knew I had it though, my own personal code of responsibility is that I stay at home. I don't expect anyone to do the same by the way, though I also don't care to be lectured by anyone on it.

    Have a great weekend Kaiser - and everyone!!



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  • Registered Users Posts: 28,577 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    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.



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,704 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl


    While I accept that this is your expressed opinion I can't agree with it .

    No, Covid is not the same as a flu or a cold. It may feel like that to you but in nearly one fifth of people in the US for example , it results in inflammatory and autoimmune responses which cause a myriad of other medical problems .

    It may be less in other countries where vaccination against the original strains was better like our own , or UK ..

    Other viruses caused post viral symptoms too but to a much lesser degree , and continuing issues were the exception , and not in the high numbers that Covid causes.

    Good news is that , so far , Omicron does not appear to be causing long Covid like other variants , but with the sheer numbers now being infected , that remains to be seen .

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00941-2/fulltext

    People are still dying . We are averaging here 4 a day atm for an illness that is being dismissed as a cold by people , and we are highly vaccinated against it, especially those that are still dying . This is four times the death rate in an average flu season , which generally only lasts a few months a year.

    Our numbers in ICU have gone up in the last few weeks but again totally in proportion to the amount of infection that is out in the community with everything back to normal , so to be expected .

    I agree that the main factor is serious illness and deaths , but lets not minimise that it is still ongoing , regardless of time of year and rising in some countries due to reduced levels of vaccination and rising cases with the latest wave of Omicron variants .

    https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/covid-19-death-toll-four-times-higher-lower-income-countries-rich-ones

    Our reactions as a society were in fact proportionate prior to vaccination, less so I agree , as more and more became protected.

    It is a learning curve and where governments and health services are responsible to keep people informed and to protect everyone, from the most vulnerable to those affected by restrictions in their work, education and home lives, they for the most part tried to keep citizens safe .

    I don't think history will look back in 15 to 20 years time and think they were wrong in that , at all. On the contrary .

    I don't think many people are living in fear now , that is an exaggeration. Most people will listen or read the news decide on their risk level and go about their business now .

    But I think people should not close their minds to the fact that we have just lived through major pandemic of our lifetime and hopefully are coming out the other side . This was not and still isn't a cold or a sniffle .

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105

    People who persist in saying this are either kidding themselves or aren't informed , maybe afraid and projecting that fear on to others who are keeping themselves up to date to protect themselves , imo .



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,646 ✭✭✭walus


    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.

    ”Where’s the revolution? Come on, people you’re letting me down!”



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,431 ✭✭✭Penfailed


    Not everyone took the vaccine the last time and fewer will do it this time.

    Gigs '21 - Stendhal Festival (July), Stendhal Festival (August), [s]Liam Gallagher & Idles[/s], King Kong Company, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, The Undertones, And So I Watch You From Afar

    Gigs '22 - And So I Watch You From Afar, Teenage Fanclub, Mogwai, Stendhal Festival, The Fratellis, Clutch, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Electric Picnic, Vantastival, The Cure, And So I Watch You From Afar

    Gigs '23 - Stiff Little Fingers, The Wood Burning Savages, Bob Log III, David Kitt, Ludovico Einaudi, DADDY LONG LEGS, The Prodigy, Stendhal Festival, Forest Fest, Electric Picnic, The Murder Capital, PJ Harvey, The Bonnevilles (w/Amy Montgomery, Rews, New Pagans), The Undertones (w/Buzzcocks), And So I Watch You From Afar

    Gigs '24 - Ben Ottewell and Ian Ball (Gomez), The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Smashing Pumpkins/Weezer, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Stendhal Festival, Forest Fest, Electric Picnic, Ride, PJ Harvey, Pixies, Therapy?, IDLES(x2)



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,431 ✭✭✭Penfailed


    Gigs '21 - Stendhal Festival (July), Stendhal Festival (August), [s]Liam Gallagher & Idles[/s], King Kong Company, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, The Undertones, And So I Watch You From Afar

    Gigs '22 - And So I Watch You From Afar, Teenage Fanclub, Mogwai, Stendhal Festival, The Fratellis, Clutch, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Electric Picnic, Vantastival, The Cure, And So I Watch You From Afar

    Gigs '23 - Stiff Little Fingers, The Wood Burning Savages, Bob Log III, David Kitt, Ludovico Einaudi, DADDY LONG LEGS, The Prodigy, Stendhal Festival, Forest Fest, Electric Picnic, The Murder Capital, PJ Harvey, The Bonnevilles (w/Amy Montgomery, Rews, New Pagans), The Undertones (w/Buzzcocks), And So I Watch You From Afar

    Gigs '24 - Ben Ottewell and Ian Ball (Gomez), The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Smashing Pumpkins/Weezer, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Stendhal Festival, Forest Fest, Electric Picnic, Ride, PJ Harvey, Pixies, Therapy?, IDLES(x2)



  • Registered Users Posts: 994 ✭✭✭hamburgham


    What gets me is all the whinging the nurses do about the 12 hour shifts, how exhausted they are etc. There would be holy murder if they were asked to do 5*7 hour shifts. 3 long days suits them down to the ground. Many do lucrative agency work on their days off and it also suits from a childcare perspective. I believe these 12 hour shifts are illegal in Australia, they’re certainly not in the patients’ interest.



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,651 ✭✭✭growleaves


    I found it very disorienting the way unvaccinated people kept getting barred from more and more things. It looked like it was going to go on for a long time.

    But at least in Ireland no one(?) was forced from their job.

    A guy I work with calls unvaccinated people "anti-vaxxer fascists".

    I think its even more unfair that they banned Russian pianists from the Dublin Piano Competition. The "crime" of having been born in St. Petersburg is even more blameless than declining to take a medicine you don't want to take.



  • Registered Users Posts: 14,005 ✭✭✭✭AlekSmart


    It may well be,however it does read like a HSE Press Release,with all of the quoted sources,now being well defined as on the Covid.inc side of the discussion.

    There is verly little hope of a 4/10/15 year rewriting of the Covid programme responses as being anything other than Super,Fantastic and so wonderfully demonstrative of our native concern for our brothers & sisters in covid.

    This is largely following the W.H.O,HSE and Western Government proclaimations on how to progress "Mass events",with the W.H.O's new Supertreaty simmering away on the side burner.

    Covid-19 of itself,remains of little consequence to the vast majority of reasonable healthy individuals,with my ongoing faith being in my natural immunity to stuff.

    Sadly,what we now have is a hugely divided populace,Worldwide,as normally fearful,non self-confident types have been relentlessly targeted by vast multi-national agencies and,it has to be said,bought-off educational and professional bodies targetting this fear resevoir and using it for ever more restrictive rules and behavioural guidelines.

    Unfortunately it's not over yet,by a long shot.

    The recent scenes at Airports Worldwide,reminded the various advising professionals that actual "ordinary people" don't,as yet,have much regard for the rareified world views of these professional "elites" who managed to collectively change the entire Western World's political & social direction for the past 2 years.

    The sudden arrival of millions of "ordinaries" back at Airport Departure Gates,was simply not meant to happen...it was off script,even admitted as such by our own Dalton Phillips of the DAA as the "Modelling" totally failed to take account of the HUMAN factors so ordinarily beloved of the Avation Sector.

    However,those "Ordinaries" were only assessing and deciding their actions based upon what they had actually witnessed during Covid,as in groups of Politicians and Senior Administrators/Advisers Worldwide totally ignoring the various severe restrictions being recommended to their minions.

    Why were these groups ignoring the rules ?

    Was it ignorance,or was it the Knowledge of the entire performance being just that....a mass experiment in Control and Direction of peoples,and their levels of response ?

    That Question remains to be put,let alone answered.

    One thing is certain,that Governing agencies have decided to double-down on the popularity of freely available,affordable mass travel for ANY reason by making it as difficult and uncomfortable as it can be made (except for those availing of private aviation services ).

    Human nature has the ability to get Humanity back on the rails,even in the face of protracted doom mongering and "End of Days" messaging,as displayed during Glastonbury's surprise appearance by Ms Thunberg.

    Reclaim our normality. 😲


    Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

    Charles Mackay (1812-1889)



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,111 ✭✭✭Red Silurian


    I'd imagine like any working shift patern it suits some and doesn't suit others. Also from a HSE point of view I don't think it makes much of a difference if the working week is divided into 14*12 hour shifts or 21*8 hour long shifts

    The unvaccinated in this country were only barred from indoor-hospitality-that-wasn't-also-your-accommodation-for-the-night and a few select sporting events, on an international scale that was a fairly mild restriction, and as you say nobody lost their job for not being vaccinated, even if they worked in the aforementioned indoor hospitality settings. The logic behind it was that it was unsafe to be in a hospitality setting and not vaccinated, which agree or disagree with made more sense than some of the other crap we've endured over the last 2 years



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Allowing one's freedom to be reduced to a QR Code is never (in any way, shape, or form) acceptable.

    QR codes are for products, not people.

    Cattle lining up to have their tags scanned for a pint. Embarrassing stuff 😄



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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,111 ✭✭✭Red Silurian


    I never said, nor would I make the argument, that it was acceptable. We had much worse restrictions than that over the 2 years though



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,577 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    WTF! Here we go again!!


    The Cabinet will sign off on new legislation which will allow the Government to make mask wearing mandatory in certain settings.

    The move is being described as precautionary and no settings have been earmarked for the return of legally required face coverings.

    .

    .

    .

    But a senior Government sources said there is “no public health rationale” for masks to return and said they do not envisage the legislation being enacted any time soon.


    “This is purely precautionary and lets people know we are still monitoring the situation and ready to take action,” the source said.

    https://www.independent.ie/world-news/coronavirus/cabinet-to-sign-off-on-new-laws-to-allow-the-government-make-mask-wearing-mandatory-in-certain-settings-41797730.html


    Un-fooking-believable!! 🤬🤬



  • Registered Users Posts: 18,055 ✭✭✭✭namloc1980


    No longer emergency legislation either by the looks of it. Just something they want on the books so they can mandate masks on a whim now. Great news for the unions who will be demanding masks.



  • Registered Users Posts: 537 ✭✭✭Apothic_Red


    Ha ha, they've come to take your freedumbs again, time to get the ffP2 out again baby



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,630 ✭✭✭SaoPaulo41


    Ah ffs



  • Registered Users Posts: 18,055 ✭✭✭✭namloc1980


    I'd bet the teacher unions will be out in force looking for masks in schools before they return in September.



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,030 ✭✭✭KrustyUCC


    Ha brilliant from the government

    Precautionary lol

    You don't introduce legislation before it's need just in case

    Of course they have identified the settings that it would likely be used in

    Seeing as there is “no public health rationale” for masks to return why even bother introducing doubt?



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,193 ✭✭✭Spudman_20000


    I can tell them what to do with their masks..




  • Registered Users Posts: 28,577 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    Oh it's obviously bull. This is a setup for the return to schools as said above, and to appease the worriers as the evenings get longer and colder.

    They can absolutely fook off with this one. With all the other crap that's happening at the moment, they want to start the whole mask arguments again!



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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,630 ✭✭✭SaoPaulo41


    Unless they are just covering themselves before dail break, so they don't have to come back, but what you said makes sense



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