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

very slippery slope

the 'just in case' is bs

Just reading that. Sounds very wishy washy. No imminent decision before the govt go off on there summer hols. Legislating for a future unknown? Are we going to see the pressure on hospital beds in the winter used as an excuse for masks?

'I disagree. It’s a job nobody wants.'

Does it still pay €420,000 per annum?

I'll take it.

Do I get a golden parachute severance package if I end up being chased from HSE headquarters by a pitchfork-wielding mob of masked fanatics?

Ok take it so. Give us your action plan there while you’re at it ;-) The pitchfork by the masks crowd are the least of your concerns - they want you to close hospitals off at the sniff of a few Covid cases and cancel vital tests and procedures, even if 50% are asymptomatic and don’t even know they have it. You’ll have to learn how to play with numbers to make them sound good, cover up health disasters such as missed diagnoses, waiting lists, no space in hospitals to carry out basic care, pretend hospitals are fully staffed & that the HSE is capable of recruiting and retaining nurses and doctors. Also paying out millions settling cases taken to court for all the poor care & practices that’s actually going on in hospitals. Your wing men are Stephen Donnelly, CMO and Robert Watt (they’re totally trustworthy to reform our health service, pinky promise). Good luck!

"Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe has said that legislation will be considered by the Cabinet around when a mask mandate might be needed.

He said people in Ireland have seen the effectiveness of mask wearing in tackling the rise of Covid-19."

How about instead he f**ks right off?

Masks are worn most effectively in hospitals (ie proper masks, not taken off) and hygiene is impeccable compared to the general public. Yet there were outbreak after outbreak in hospitals. To try to paint the mask wearing as some sort of effective tool is quite simply ignorant to reality. The virus is just too transmissible and the mask is a symbolic gesture more than it is a successful containment tool.

You're talking about masks as a protective PPP to the wearer. There's lots of evidence for masks as barriers at reducing transmission from infected people - on the masks thread, certainly for the earlier variants under which it was studied. Omicron may have changed that somewhat but that doesn't invalidate the principle that they can have a role to play in limiting the spread of respiratory viruses and we don't know what variants may emerge.

I think the writing was on the wall for boosters for everyone come autumn/winter. I was expecting that for sometime.

Derail the thread? For calling out a poster on deliberate twisting of the meaning of the word 'permanent'?

It's obvious you have no come back to:

How it is a permanent feature, if it merely exists as an (not in force) power on the statute books?

It isn't, either you don't understand the meaning of the word permanent, or you do and are being deliberately disingenuous if not engaged in outright deception.

If you don't want to derail this thread with conspiracy theory nonsense about permanent masks you'll find the solution in your original post.

Oh look more shifting of the goalposts. Poster caught out in a lie doesn't want thread derailed by being called out on it.

This is what you wrote:

Some of us said back in May 2020 that these restrictions could end up permanent and we were ridiculed and directed to the conspiracy theory forum.

Drop the ridiculous nonsense about permanent masks, it's not permanent in the sense you meant it and you know it so if you want to discuss permanent masks you already know where to do so.

If you want to discuss the actual contents of this new measure, I'm happy to give my opinion - on the masks thread.