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Reflection on the pandemic: questions about the authorities' response.

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,214 ✭✭✭Spudman_20000


    Sums up this country that a highly regarded physician like Dr Feeley was forced to resign while the likes of Holohan was awarded doctorates, freedom of the city and had murals painted of him.

    Time has shown Dr Feeley to be completely correct, as evidenced by the on-going non-Covid excess deaths in Ireland and throughout Europe, along with the immeasurable impact on children's education and people's livelihoods. 



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,986 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    Feeley's comments in the context of an infectious disease made no sense.

    And time has shown no such thing. There is considerable debate about the extent of the excess deaths when age adjusted, and other factors in play such as heatwaves, aging population, and long covid - which is something else Feeley conveniently ignores.

    In Scotland excess deaths when adjusted for demographics changes are returning to or below previous years.

    https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2023/excess-deaths-in-february-at-lowest-level-for-a-year

    Not sure how you think children's education could have been maintained in any other way, with teachers falling ill and the risk of them passing on a disease potentially deadly to their parents and carers and teachers.

    If you think those things are 'immeasurable', then the same must apply in spades for the consequences of Europe not applying restrictions etc etc. Which completely undercuts therefore your entire argument.

    Post edited by odyssey06 on

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,300 ✭✭✭Royale with Cheese


    Why am I not surprised that Tony Holohan is bringing out a fúcking memoir 😒

    I'm sure a large cohort of the population will lap it up. A nice stocking filler this Christmas for your granny that hasn't left her house since 2019.



  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,916 Mod ✭✭✭✭shesty



    There was a serious lack of measured debate - any form of any debate for the guts of 12 months.

    It was my way or the highway with pretty much the only voice being Tony Holohan's, replaced by Ronan Glynn for brief periods.

    Every single news and media outlet carried multiple covid stories, daily, 24/7.When they realised that people were switching to Spotify and similar to avoid the constant barrage of health-related ads and news bulletins, they paid for an ad campaign to be run on Spotify about covid.

    This wall of yes, fear, only began to be broached around the time that a link was made with blood clots and Astra Zeneca vaccines, when the over 60s were targets for those first vaccines (and to cut off rows, I am not anti-vaccine and nor do I believe the blood clots were something everyone developed).It was only then, a good 12 months in, that I saw people around me - particularly in my parents generation - start saying "hang on a sec.What is going on here.", and the public discourse became more questioning.

    There is zero comparison to be drawn between public health campaigns about alcohol, smoking and drink driving vs what happened during covid.The intensity of the covid public health campaign was multiple times over and above any other public health campaign and invaded every part of every single person's life.

    Feeney may not be correct in his somewhat blase risk assessment of how covid affected people depending on age, but he is spot on in his comments about how the Government behaved, how the media was managed and what they asked of people over such a long period.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,925 ✭✭✭✭bucketybuck


    In fairness, they created the problem, its perhaps only right that they do something about it.

    They should be a bit more honest about it though. "We are sorry we fucked up so many lives due to our campaign of fear, we were just caught up in the moment and didn't think through the consequences. Please don't die alone in your homes just because of what we said".



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,986 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    Feeney seems to think the disparate age impact was a game changer, but that's not the point. It was only one piece of the equation.

    What Feeney really gets wrong, is that he talked only of the direct risk of covid to someone by age but conveniently leaves out that people not at high risk from covid can spread it to those who are. Well if you don't think through the implications of that of course you will not understand why the restrictions were necessary. That is the risk assessment he is not correct on, just how infectious covid is, and the implications of that.

    Is an element of 'fear', for want of a better word, part of public health campaigns against smoking? Drink driving? STDs? Yes or no?

    So yes, there is a comparison to be drawn when that word in particular is used.

    Was the intensity greater, yes. But that is only to be expected given a global pandemic of a highly infectious disease and is reflected in the response of every major health authority in the world to the risk covid posed to public health systems.

    As it is to be expected there would be huge coverage of it in the media. And given 21st century media there would be overload of coverage.

    And yes, as part of public health campaigns, ads are placed eg in other media such as Spotify etc etc

    In terms of impact on people, as it noted in the article the very real images from Italy had a huge impact. As much if not more so than anything that came later via intentional health campaigns.

    From early in the pandemic the HSE messaging was that the vast majority of cases would be mild, which does not strike me as the mantra of someone trying to spread hysteria.

    Was there a measured debate in England? France? Germany? What does that mean in practice?

    What's the difference in Ireland? The difference here is that we didn't have the wiggle room with regard to hospital and ICU capacity. That's why NPHET's 'abundance of caution' seemed to dictate to the government more than authorities did in other countries. If you look back at threads you will see posts from me arguing eg to stick with Level 3 in autumn 2020 for longer instead of lockdown, and good points made on this forum that we should have opened up more outdoors for summer in 2020. I don't think any 'debate' would have changed what happened in practice, because it would have come back to the parlous state of our health service and no one wanting to take a calculated risk with it.

    So I'm not saying we got everything right, but I understand why things were done the way they were.

    Post edited by odyssey06 on

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,299 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    The lockdowns have created an even larger weed generation.

    This is just my observation but weed usage has gone up considerably since 2019. Instead of drinking, a lot of young men addicted to weed now.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,811 ✭✭✭political analyst


    During the first lockdown, health authorities throughout the world were skeptical about the use of masks. What changed their minds?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,253 ✭✭✭CalamariFritti


    Masks were entirely a political decision IMO. A show of 'this is serious' and we all be better taking it seriously. Political theatre. And a bit of a show of power.

    Once the big ones like USA and the big EU nations went that way it was the done thing. Everybody else just had to follow or would end up before the international court of media condemnation.

    Next it turned into yet another blue vs red battleground that we seem to be hell bend on copying from the states where facts are secondary one way or the other and being on the 'right side' is everything. You could see it all over social media including here.

    Post edited by CalamariFritti on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,906 ✭✭✭PommieBast


    Think the deciding factor was simply lack of supply.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 75 ✭✭live4tkd


    I would add to as was said earlier that the authorities felt that the ordinary joe soap would not wear masks correctly. I have no doubt they work when used properly following proper medical protocols like the medical professionals however ordinary joe soaps like myself would not use them correctly, ok we know how to put them on but repeated handling, using cloth masks, even though if handled you are supposed to replace it makes it a logistical nightmare for those outside medical settings thus negating the effects.

    To get accurate results would need trials with proper wearing of masks of the right type. I wore masks but hated them.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,986 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    In the early stages the consideration re: masks was for direct protection, and use of masks for direct protection those caveats apply. That was reinforced by lack of supply, and early misinformation from China that spread was primarily by touch transfer (fomite) instead of respiratory.

    What changed was more masks, more understanding that it spread primarily by respiratory droplets and a mental shift to thinking about masks for the general public to contain infectious droplets from an infected person - rather than directly protect the wearer.

    All of this has been discussed in detail on the masks thread, so don't want to go into any more detail here.

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,811 ✭✭✭political analyst


    Surely, people didn't believe that the virus could go through the skin, did they? The virus that caused the 2002 SARS outbreak (and I know that Covid is, technically, a form of SARS) was also a coronavirus and health authorities must have known how that was contracted and so it ought to have stood to reason that they would know that all coronviruses were transmissible in the same way, albeit with each coronavirus having a different level of contagiousness. Therefore, health authorities in democratic countries ought to have taken the Chinese government's statements with a pinch of salt.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,986 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    Not through skin, I think more like ebola or norovirus, spread by fomite transmission primarily.

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,811 ✭✭✭political analyst


    I had never heard of a fomite until now. I'm posting this Wikipedia article here for everyone else's benefit.




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 568 ✭✭✭72sheep


    100% agree. I also maintain that the IT Health Editor's insistence on giving Dr Feeley a good kicking in that recent article amounts to an admission of guilt. Shameful "journalism".



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,592 ✭✭✭FintanMcluskey




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,906 ✭✭✭PommieBast


    Nope. "Dr." (nurses don't get the title) John was (he's retired) not a bad nurse, but how he has acted on YouTube has had issues. I don't think he is as bad as @Beasty portrays him but I am not a mod who would have extra info.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,032 ✭✭✭✭Cluedo Monopoly


    There was a consultant on the radio yesterday talking about masks. He was asked was he seeing much Covid in hospitals and he said very little and then said that he hardly hears anyone mention the word Covid now, that people want to forget about it.

    What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,521 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl



    How does that article in which you incorrectly say he was given a " good kicking " amount to either an "admission of guilt" ( ?) or " shameful journalism " ?

    Please explain because all I read in that piece was a man ( yes I know he is a surgeon but still in this regard an ignorant man ) making ill judged and unscientific comments , straight out of a playbook used by some very unscrupulous individuals , which is a bit of a joke frankly when he is accusing others of not following the science , and a journalist who is trying to present the mainstream , but in this case alternative view, for some balance.

    It beggars belief that a doctor would think that letting a new and potentially severe infection RIP without vaccine or treatment , would somehow be ok for young and old. It was pretty obvious to most people that not only was he very out of date as regards infection control but aggressively and dangerously ignorant . He was and is an embarrassment, espousing failed herd immunity narrative when a lot of his, mainly old , patients would have been dead if he had been allowed to carry on regardless.

    I have nursed some very sick younger people from Covid , some of whom took months to recover , and while they had no underlying conditions prior to infection , they had a raft of them afterwards. So the spiel about young being alright is just that , bs . Many have recovered now but some have now been diagnosed with vulnerability and underlying conditions that they never knew they had before.

    There were other media sources who were completely unbalanced and generated fear in their reporting on both sides , RTE.. Clare Byrne was dreadful , and Gript on the other side equally appalling.

    IT was balanced throughout and made some attempt at reporting and interpreting what was going on , without just regurgitating NPHETs words .

    It was difficult because, let's face it, for quite a while there was no other Irish news happening except for Covid and largely through daily numbers updates from HSE, DoH and NPHET , so not a lot of deviation possible from that, except to outright deny facts and figures being reproduced. I do remember the likes of Paul Cullen who you are slating , asking very pointed questions in the briefings for instance , questions that many here were asking , and I respect him for that .


    @shesty As regards fear ..

    There was fear prior to vaccination , very much so and those early variants were nasty and killed people , a fact which some, it would seem , would like to wipe from memory. Maybe it's not in their own memory, but it is in mine and many others . So it was genuine urgency from public health to get whatever the message was across by any means. The fact that the message was frequently not bang on the money in the beginning is really a pointless argument , knowledge in hindsight while valuable, is in short supply when you are in the midst of it and those emergency methods tried and tested previously are what is used until you can gain insight in real time .

    We all know , now ..

    It is unfortunate that people like Clare Byrne made her entire career out of every silly little thing Covid and that TH was so much to the fore behaving like he was making all the decisions, and being the boss , but the plain fact is our creaky health service would have been utterly overrun and swamped if restrictive actions were not taken . Especially in that first 18 months. As it was it was pushed to the limit.

    This is known and accepted now , whether we like the way it happened or not.

    You only have to look at the disaster that was the last six months with Covid , flu and RSV to see that if Covid was allowed RIP in the early days , we could not have coped and people would have been traumatised in a whole other way .

    I have discussed this before on this thread with some who deny the seriousness of the illness prior to vaccination / immunity / less severe variants ( not you ) Also denying deaths numbers , and the positive effects of vaccinations . And some are still trying , unsuccessfully for the most part , to argue that vaccinations are killing people now , when all the data so far shows very small numbers of deaths from vaccines .

    Lets talk about that fear although very much not real , being spread by some ..or is it just MSM that gets the flak ?

    I remember when warnings about AstraZeneca were put out there with restrictions on the age groups it could be given to, saying it should be removed from the rollout completely and being called all sorts , because people wanted their shots , and wanted them NOW !

    Likewise discussing early on in the vaccine rollout that new variants were appearing more dangerous than before ( Delta from India at the time ) or that they were probably likely to mutate to evade the vaccines, I was savaged . This was not scare tactics just honest discussion on this forum about a subject of which I had knowledge .

    It was pretty difficult to get a clear message about what was happening and not to scare people . It was a scary subject to be fair , for most people .

    I know you know how variable even the milder Omicron infection can be from other discussions we gave had . Some relatively young people were hit harder than expected not with the infection but the after effects . Thankfully that seems to be less and less of a problem .

    I think we are all going through the post traumatic stress of the last few years in different ways trying to rationalise what we did , how we reacted , what we had to cope with day to day , all at different levels and different kinds of PTSD.

    Some respond by denying , others by minimising , others by continuing to try to learn more about it , others by blocking all the bad stuff .

    Most of us will get over it and have done already, but it won't be forgotten by any of us who were working in hospitals in that first year .

    https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/working-during-covid-was-a-scary-time-we-havent-forgotten-any-of-it-the-fear-was-real-42329074.html


    So yes to summarise , the media WAS used to get the message out there . That would be standard practice the world over . Some journos were responsible and made sure they reported the facts and not sensationalist rubbish , others were only out for clicks and money and gain at any cost . Unfortunately that's the same as every other news day .

    What do people expect , that a leaflet in the door and weekly numbers in the news , as with other less dangerous public health campaigns , like flu , would have prevented the vast majority from going out and mixing as normal in a pandemic of proportions never seen in our lifetimes ? Not a chance ...usual campaigns eg flu , only reach on average 30% of the targeted population normally .

    This was a major emergency and a real case of life, if the message got across , or death for many if it didn't in the early months . It was not only urgent but essential to use any and all means to get the message across , painful as that may be .

    I don't blame the media by and large for that as the DoH and the HSE used them , but some really ran with it for far too long .

    Hopefully we won't see the like again .

    Whether another pandemic would generate similar media coverage though , probably . That's how they make their money isn't it ?



  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,916 Mod ✭✭✭✭shesty


    Yes @Goldengirl .I am standing back and trying to analyse (yes in hindsight, alway 20/20).No more than yourself, I do not think everything we did was wrong and being scientific myself, I understand how data can be looked at.I think I am trying to highlight things that we did but could have done better or differently.It's probably more a social/logistical thing from my viewpoint.

    I understand why the media was used. I do think it went way overboard but that it went that way with the blessing of those in power.I have exposure to the civil service, I'd be fairly sure a decision was made or communicated to the media to keep a strong message being sent out but I think there was a big social cost to that that was intentionally ignored.

    Initial lockdowns I agree with, but what followed from Aug 2020 onwards could have been more nuanced.Interesting you say sticking with tried and tested measures mind you, I have had the misfortune to be in children's A&E of late, and I find the logistics of A&Es to be very irritating.I understand medically how triage works, but I am viewing it with a different mindset and can see a lot of ways that flow of patients could be improved - it just wouldn't tie in with the medical way of triaging.But if you have people waiting 10+ hours to be seen, does it suggest that maybe the medical way needs to be examined and see could it be refined or altered to be improved?? With that in mind, maybe tried and tested methods weren't so great as time went by....and I think that is where my thoughts would be, should we have altered our approach somewhat as we went on?Just querying it all really. It does need to be questioned, we should learn from it.I just don't think we will.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,521 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl


    I agree with you about the 'tried and tested'.

    It is a fallback, is what I meant, when in crisis, but once the data starts to come in, changes should be made. This would be my criticism too that cogwheels of power moved too slowly to change the message. Went from high alert to 'off a cliff/ no worries now ' , no explanation.

    Obviously there was a time in between that they knew that everything was changing but the media did not get that message.

    Can't comment about the A&E situation in relation to this.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,521 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,337 ✭✭✭✭astrofool


    I think it was the one of the times politicians had to make decisions based on what will definitely happen but hasn't happened yet due to the lag from cases to hospitalisations. They hate doing that as they get all of the blame without pointing to what they were preventing (other than comparisons to other countries like Italy which local populations find a nebulous comparison, India also got caught the same way with Delta).

    Calling in the IMF was similar.

    A more recent example was the US telling everyone what russia was going to do in Ukraine but Europe only reacting after it happened, there are some very cringey posts from the days before the invasion (with a lot of those posters intersecting with the anti-restrictions crowd on here).



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 568 ✭✭✭72sheep


    I suppose reflections can include how the HSE leadership and Dept. of Health managed their exit strategy. Donnelly finally released the report and, you guessed it, there's "lessons to be learned".

    https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41118640.html



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,521 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl


    I don't know what you are referring to there. I think I understand well the' lag of cases to hospitalisations ' but that was not what I was talking about?

    The rest of this...what relevance to my post?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,521 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl


    Another post with more

    . irrelevance...

    If you read the link you pisted, it discusses TH's failed appointment, nothing to do with HSE, DOH or Covid, whatsoever!

    Think maybe people ate all reflected out, judging by some of these posts.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,337 ✭✭✭✭astrofool


    It was a comment about this:

    Went from high alert to 'off a cliff/ no worries now ' , no explanation.

    Because of the lag time it meant it was fairly dramatic swings which was hard for the public to understand and hard for the government to message effectively.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 568 ✭✭✭72sheep


    Golden, don't fret about Tony's failed appointment at TCD, he's since fallen back into a job within the loving arms of one of Ireland's largest Covid PCR testing laboratories.

    And regarding reflections - there's no hurry at all, we'll take it handy and in the words of The Carpenters we've only just begun.... LOL!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 568 ✭✭✭72sheep


    "we should learn from it.I just don't think we will" - unfortunately I don't disagree. I'm holding on to a faint glimmer of hope that doctors will be more savvy next time round. They were completely steamrolled by the media, who in turn were facilitated by "public scientists" that got drunk on the public attention. I know many GP's who are still stunned by what transpired during Covid and are having to deal with the repercussions of lockdown in their surgeries on a daily basis.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,986 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    You know many GPs? Well grand, you can ask them how they would have handled the number of cases needing medical care, secondary infections, infection control in their clinics without lockdown and other measures in place in wider society.

    And if you know anything about GPs you'd know they and their representative associations would have been the loudest voices calling for lockdown and restrictions to control spread of covid had we not done so.

    From Northern Ireland, Chair of the BMA's GP committee

    And from India:

    https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/doctors-associations-call-for-a-lockdown/article34502725.ece

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,811 ✭✭✭political analyst


    So why didn't the government disclose to the public the evidence on which these decisions were being made?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,337 ✭✭✭✭astrofool


    They did, but be clear, what evidence are you asking for or talking about because there are masses amount of data to be picked through.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,811 ✭✭✭political analyst


    I guess that mathematical 'models' were used to make those decisions. If only people had accepted that Christmas in 2020 wasn't going to be as happy as it usually was .....



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 568 ✭✭✭72sheep


    What an incredibly garbled piece of reporting from a team of three journalists at the IT. Just look at all those scary quotes! 

    Isn't it funny that so many healthcare workers, i.e. those people directly exposed to the "carnage" wrought by Covid, are still far less convinced about vaccines than the journos, politicians, media pundits, pharmacists, accountants, solicitors,... Perhaps Paul and the IT Health team could write an article explaining to us how the stupidity of these under-educated nurses and hospital porters must not be allowed to hold the country to ransom ;-) 

    https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2023/04/20/new-hse-chief-warned-over-poor-vaccine-uptake-among-staff/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,214 ✭✭✭Spudman_20000


    Wow, the veritable stampede of healthcare workers getting their boosters that some on here assured us would happen doesn’t seem to have materialised. What a shocker.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,668 ✭✭✭walus


    They simply did not receive the memo from the ‘nudge unit’ to turn off the fear factor. Old habits die hard.

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



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,521 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl


    Where was I " worried about" TH and his appointment?

    Stop making stuff up in order to have something to post.

    None of that is relevant to pandemic reflections, just people with a gripe about personalities.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,521 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl


    Or they have been infected already... Repeatedly.

    As I have said before.. And before that as well....



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,521 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl


    Be great if one of you came up with something new and relevant to.. talk.. about instead of venting about public servants.. Very tiresome.

    Edit .spelling .

    Post edited by Goldengirl on


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 568 ✭✭✭72sheep


    TH's moves post-Covid are 100% certainly worthy of our reflection:

    • TH was somehow led to believe that he qualified for a "10 year secondment"(?!?!) to TCD.
    • Our civil service (R. Watt) over-stepped multiple boundaries to allocate our public funds to cover the €20m required for TH's team in TCD.
    • Now that it's all gone south, our Govmt and Watt are going at each other like rats about their various inconsistent recollections :)

    The fact that TH has landed a job at a PCR Testing Lab, that profited millions during Covid, is simply a fact.

    Now if you had said I had personality issues with "snake oil" Nolan, Paul Reid or Dr Pete Lunn, then I probably would have agreed with you!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,521 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl


    If he had landed that job during Covid , when PCR testing was up and running it would be worthy of discussion .

    Now its derisory.



  • Administrators, Social & Fun Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 78,456 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Beasty


    This is a thread to discuss Coronavirus, not Tony Holohan. His decisions/actions during the pandemic are on topic, his activities outside those Covid responsibilities are not

    Any questions PM me - do not respond to this warning in thread



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,249 ✭✭✭TomSweeney


    Funny he used to be revered here and you couldn't critisize him, but now he goes against your Covidian view you dismiss him - and seems you can't praise him.


    Fact is, he's been pretty much spot on throughout this as and as the data comes in he is being proved right.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,986 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    No he hasn't. You haven't even tried to make the case with any actual facts. Stating "fact is" without providing any actual facts is a clear sign your claim is without foundation.

    He has been shown to be wrong or relaying misinformation on basic facts about covid for example Ivermectin in Japan.

    He seems to be chasing an audience now, maybe got used to the limelight and the audience for someone explaining the scientific consensus is smaller than someone trying to find an angle.

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,521 ✭✭✭✭Goldengirl


    No facts in his posts , smoke, mirrors and misinformation.

    Who" revered" him ? Not here or any of the main Covid threads.

    You are mixing up this thread with some other that extols the extremely doubtful virtues of Ivermectin and Vit D .



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 568 ✭✭✭72sheep


    Nurses looking to have long Covid classified as an occupational injury. Playing the HSE/govmt right at their own game and you can't blame them.

    Also great to see IT Health editor reporting on "a seminar" confirming that long Covid "symptoms are internationally recognised" - they fail to mention that said symptoms include the wonderfully vague catch-all of "feeling sick", LOL!

    https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2023/04/20/two-thirds-of-patients-at-long-covid-neurology-clinic-yet-to-return-to-work-fully-seminar-told/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,986 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    Theres a lot more to long covid than your post would suggest.

    Here is just one study which shows blood flow differences

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-32275-3

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,668 ✭✭✭walus


    This study looked at long covid but unlike many other studies it used a control group - cohort sick with ‘other upper respiratory illnesses’ that tested covid negative. According to them “differences in measures of well-being between baseline and follow-up were statistically and clinically better among those in the COVID-19–positive group vs the COVID-19–negative group” and “SARS-CoV-2 infection was not associated with worse physical, mental, and social well-being (as measured through PROMIS scores) at 3-month follow-up compared with no SARS-CoV-2 infection among adults with symptomatic illness.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2799116

    If ‘long covid’ is a thing, so is long ‘any other upper respiratory illness’.

    Blown out of proportion, as it suited the narrative. Still useful to those who desperately need to justify their choices.

    Post edited by walus on

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



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,986 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    All I see here is a desperate need to spin / downplay results. Whatever way you spin the results it shows large numbers of people experiencing long covid symptoms.

    Covid is a highly infectious disease so even if its long term effect was 'only' comparable with other respiratory diseases that is still significant for public health:

    "We found that 39.6% of individuals in the COVID-19–positive group reported moderate to severe impairments across any of the evaluated PROMIS well-being domains at follow-up."

    This is a version of long covid too:

    People infected with SARS-COV-2 had more than three times the risk of dying over the following year compared with those who remained uninfected.

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(22)00087-4/fulltext

    The study you have linked is hardly conclusive given its noted limitations. It notes another study showing cognitive impact from long covid and then says:

    "Furthermore, those with the most severe disease may have been unable or unwilling to participate; it is possible that those too ill to participate were at higher risk of experiencing long-term symptoms after COVID-19. It is also possible that those with cognitive impairment may have been less likely to enroll."

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



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