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

You sound depressed about the past. Exactly my point.

Firstly we had two people who led the country and both made lots of stupid decisions. There was a multitude of people giving advice to these people. You had scientists and medical professionals who had our and the country's health as their primary concern and you had public relations advisors telling them what was the best thing to do for their careers.

Secondly we seen the horrific scenes in Italy which were frightening and harrowing. Nobody here wanted to see that happening in our country. It was a long time before we knew enough about this virus.

I was against opening up for Christmas 2020 and was proven right. You can go back and check the threads before then and you'll see me predict the number of infections which would occur by opening up for Christmas.

Can you tell me why I still have to wear a mask entering a hospital, my local GP's practice and nearly every medical facility in the country? Are all these medical people stupid?

Can you tell me what qualifications you have in the science and/or medical fields which bring you to the conclusion that these lockdowns were unnecessary?

There were mistskes made, lots of them from not shutting the country down earlier and preventing people entering the country without proper quarantine to continuing with lockdowns when it was not necessary in the eyes of the majority of scientists and medical professionals.

Fact of the matter is that in almost all instances the decisions made were done in good faith to prevent illness and death. Things may not have been much worse if there were no lockdowns but the expert advice at the time was to continue with lockdowns.

Let's not forget that one of the key components in making these decisions was the health service not being able to cope with the numbers if we didn't lock down. As soon as the threat to the health service went away the lockdowns eased off.

I personally have a sister-in-law and niece who still haven't fully recovered from this thing. They contracted it at Christmas 2020.

Looking for people to blame because you were locked down for a while, well I'd perceive it as somebody whose never had a hard day in their lives unlike people who lived through a couple of depressions where we were basically locked down by struggling to survive financially.

We got through it though and it made us stronger and more adepth at dealing with any crisis that came our way. I found the lockdowns easy. In this day and age with video calls, movie and TV streaming services and smartphones it was pretty simple to keep yourself busy and keep your mind off things. I was out every day walking my dogs as I have always done.

The only things you couldn't do were go visiting other people, go to pubs, clubs and restaurants. None of these things are necessary and with video calls it made it easy to stay in touch and see the faces of your family and friends.

It's pretty much over now for the regular person and you should go enjoy your life instead of harping back, being angry and sad about things. Learn from the past but look forward with positivity and intent.

One of the realisations for me from this thing was that I thought, despite not trusting them, politicians were in general pretty intelligent. I realise now that they certainly are not.

I'm quite confident you never had a hard day in your life before COVID. The sense of entitlement in your post is extraordinary.

Do you understand that the vast majority of the country were scared as hell of this thing?

Iirc it was close to 94% that were in favour of the initial lockdown. That number diminished as time went by but it was still a very high number in favour of lockdowns before the first vaccine became generally available.

This is a democracy so the majority rules.

We didn't know in 2020 how bad this thing was and how many people it would kill. We collect data and make educated guesses off of them. We didn't have enough data in six months or nine months to make any sort of prediction about anything. It looked like old people were in more danger but younger people were dying from it too and we had to find out why that was happening.

I'm quite confident you never had a hard day in your life. What you'd consider a hard day wouldn't be anything of the sort to me and most people my age.

I had to live off of noodles, a decent meal was Dunnes Stores pasta and tomato sauce. We always ate well on a Sunday though with a proper dinner of potatoes, veg and normally roast beef. There was no money for the pub or fancy clothes. You bought two pairs of pants and two jumpers and t-shirts and one pair of footwear unless you needed boots or something for work and you stuck with them until they were pretty much worn out. There was no money for the pub anymore than one day per month.

I realise it wasn't that tough for everybody but for young people not long into their careers on crap money it was like that. I was trying to save money to eventually have enough for a mortgage, it was a struggle to save £500 per year.

I experienced all this as a young child too when my parents struggled to get the money to pay the mortgage. The last time I went through this was from about 2010 to 2014 I think but I was in much better shape financially at that stage so it wasn't that difficult.

So I was basically stuck at home for years with no internet, smartphone, Netflix etc. I didn't even have a dog because I couldn't afford to have one. I worked, went home to my two channel TV, slept, rince and repeat.

And you think the lockdown was tough. Lmfao.

Hindsight is an invaluable tool that no one had in 2020. Was it understandable that there was a lockdown at the start? Absolutely. But once it became clear where the threat with Covid lay, particularly with older and vulnerable people, our response should have changed accordingly which it never did. I’ve seen some posters on here mention ‘international best practice’. The fact of the matter is Ireland was an outlier in that regard and locked down for longer, for more prolonged periods and more severe restrictions imposed. If we remember the coveted NPHET and Government ‘levels’, many countries eventually functioned at a level 3 with indoor dining & pubs closed, adapted options re shops & barbers which remained open, schools open & instead of 5km travel limits - county travel limits. The response was solely focused on lessening the spread of Covid, without taking into account the severe societal impacts the restrictions would have, particularly as they dragged on. When the Covid vaccine appeared in 2021, people were offered a way out by taking it. What we know now is it doesn’t prevent transmission or infection but seems to have lessened the impact on hospitals. Multiple boosters should be questioned & vaccine passports for societal participation are criminal in my opinion. Taking a medicine of any kind should be done via informed consent of a medical professional and patient, period. A reflection and evaluation of what went wrong and right during Covid is vital for figure crisis going forward.