Coronavirus

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Just arrived in Dublin from Bordeaux. Flight was empty, airport is empty, everyone (of the few there were) masked both ends and during flight, tracking form thing was mandatory to get through passport control.

Can't believe they let you back in the country 

Haha, the missus and kid lend me an air of respectability! We're straight out and staying in the folks' place for the time we're here, bit of a walk everyday, that's it. All within what's asked, even though on a local (rather than national) level, we haven't been anywhere recently with anything other than vanishingly low case rates and we've been distancing, etc., the whole time.

At Bordeaux airport, anyone arriving can get tested free, not offered in Dublin though, which is a pity.

[Snare]

Interesting report here:
https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/casesinireland/epidemiologyofcovid-19inireland/COVID-19%20Daily%20epidemiology%20report%20(NPHET)%20v1.0_20200810_website.pdf

[astfgyl]

Interesting report here:
https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/casesinireland/epidemiologyofcovid-19inireland/COVID-19%20Daily%20epidemiology%20report%20(NPHET)%20v1.0_20200810_website.pdf

Grand bit of reading in that. I'm still trying to decide how to spin it to myself

[Pedrito]

So here's a question in relation to Covid.

How long do we continue with masks and not just take our chances? Would you prefer things to go back to normal or are you willing to do another year, if not longer of what we're doing now?

I'm looking at how different countries have approached the issue and despite very different approaches there is relatively little between them percentagewise.

Looking at actual testing: The US has tested more than the whole world combined https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-total-tests-for-covid-19

Looking at deaths per million, Ireland is in 13th place, Spain where we had complete lockdown for months is in 4th: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

And yet no sign of China..who would have believed it?

Germany, which seemed to be doing ok, seems to have gotten complacent, people holidaying abroad etc. France on the rise too.

[astfgyl]

I'm looking at how different countries have approached the issue and despite very different approaches there is relatively little between them percentagewise.

I wear the mask with a let's all try it and see if it works attitude. But looking at the way they haven't been actually proven to do anything, it's more of a right let's do it your way so we can see it doesn't work attitude really. The whole thing reminds me of the anecdote about the round of applause where the first one to stop went to the gulag. The whole thing went past ridiculous long ago. Everyone has gone insane.

[pete]

I don't mind wearing the masks when we need to. Remote working suits me grand. I'd be happy to never see the inside of a busy office / commute again. Socially distanced pints and gigs happening now so it feels a bit more normal.

If they could manage to get the normal pubs open then I'd be grand for another year! Just for a quiet pint at the bar!

Kinda feel it's not my call as the chances of it killing me are low

[astfgyl]

Here, got this today from the kids' primary school:

RE: Physical Distancing and Safe School Attendance

Physical Distancing will be achieved in two ways: -

Increasing Separation. This will be achieved by re-configuring the classrooms to maximise physical distancing. Each class will be referred to as a bubble and we will ensure that there is as little contact as possible between children in different bubbles. Within the bubbles, children will be organised into pods. A pod is a group of children who will sit together and who will stay in their pod while in the bubble, or classroom.

Decreasing Interaction. This will be achieved by decreasing the potential for children from different bubbles to interact. There will be different routes for various bubbles to enter and exit the school and to access their classrooms. Bubbles will have separate playing areas on the playground. The junior classes will have individual, clearly defined areas to the rear of the school, while the senior classes will play in front of the school also in clearly defined areas along with having access to the field. There will be four teachers and an SNA on yard duty at all times

These are the same kids who will hang out after school together and play sports together. Unworkable and pointless shite just to appease. Young lad hurling the other night and not allowed shake hands after the game. Ridiculous and dangerously stupid. Masks in all indoor settings unless we happen to be eating, and then the virus is not so airborne all of a sudden. Ridiculous. 105 minutes in a pub eating pizza and we are safe as long as it costs 9 euro each. Ridiculous. Over 99 percent survival rate and world shut down causing untold damage to economies and leading to numerous other poor health outcomes which will cripple health service budgets for years to come, just not with covid. Ridiculous shit.

Finally, the removal of our personal freedom to choose to wear or not to wear a mask and the switch of ownership of our personal safety from ourselves to our governments. There is the argument given then saying what about the health service professionals, why can't we shut it all down to protect them? Well we can, but then we are being irresponsible by doing anything at all that carries any element of risk whatsoever really and we should stop driving our cars and gong up ladders as well. What about the old folk? Sure if you want to visit granny, take the precautions yourself and if you are sick, don't visit. What about the nursing homes? Surely the residents are worth enough money for the nursing homes to sort their own shit out and stop laying the blame at the door of joe soap out on the street for their failing the old folks they are supposed to be protecting. The same old folks who die of covid are also the same ones that the flu would also kill, so it's pretty surprising that they weren't already pretty well-equipped for this. Ridiculous.

[Eoin McLove]

Just arrived in Dublin from Bordeaux. Flight was empty, airport is empty, everyone (of the few there were) masked both ends and during flight, tracking form thing was mandatory to get through passport control.

Masked both ends? Now there's a mental image.

[livingabortion]

Just arrived in Dublin from Bordeaux. Flight was empty, airport is empty, everyone (of the few there were) masked both ends and during flight, tracking form thing was mandatory to get through passport control.

Masked both ends? Now there's a mental image.

[astfgyl]

Has anyone else noticed that with all the latest outbreaks, they are only being highlighted by the blanket testing and not by people actually being sick? Does anyone find that a bit strange, that all these people are carrying a deadly disease and yet have to do a test to know if they have it or not? Surely this adds credence to the notion that the death rate is markedly lower than the confirmed numbers would have us believe.

Just reading there about how hospital numbers have remained stable despite the upturn in numbers testing positive and wondering how far will we all go before we realise that we went too far with it all and that a lot of the measures taken are contradictory and fruitless. So if I run in to a shop for a litre of milk for 2 minutes I must put on a mask and yet if I want to sit in a pub for the guts of 2 hours eating a pizza I don't need one.

At the start of all of this I was thinking in all directions about it and reading all sorts of stuff both for and against the many different approaches to dealing with this but now that the dust has settled somewhat surely I can't be the only one who thinks it's becoming apparent that it has been entirely blown out of proportion and the whole response driven by competing interests for the usual suspect cause of more money. Can everyone not see that because of the sheer level of people who are not sick and have no idea they have it, that all solutions are doomed to failure? Is it time to forget about the whole lockdown approach and go with protecting the vulnerable and letting the rest have at it in the usual fashion?

Talking to people in general on the street I can feel there is traction increasing in that train of thought and not because of the whole "it's not real it's a conspiracy" angle, but more because it's getting obvious it isn't going to work and the realisation that the increase in numbers doesn't equate to an increase in deaths or sick people.

Who here on this forum is afraid of getting it and if you are, are you cocooning yourself, or are you doing the minimum required by public health advice in full trust that the government knows exactly what it is doing and have good reason why people can be unmasked in a restaurant and not a shop?

Edit: Just saw there that hospital waiting list numbers are now over 819,000. Can we see now that the response to the coronavirus will potentially be far more damaging than anything the virus would have done in the long term? 819,000 people who are not asymptomatic, who have actual reasons to be seen in a hospital and stuck on a waiting list. That is about a fifth of the population. What percentage of the population has been affected by the covid? 0.04% deaths and 0.5% discovered infections in total. That is over the 6 months, not at the one time by the way so what is the percentage of affected people at the minute? I dunno but it's far less than that anyway. I'm not even going to get into the economic repercussions of all of this beyond saying just wait for the greatest buyout of all time coming to a world near you in the next year or two. 2008 will be like a dummy run for what happens next.

So which is the more damaging, the covid or the response?

[astfgyl]

actually, forget it

[Pedrito]

You're spot on with loads of what you're saying though. The testing is showing massive asymptomatic levels. It certainly killed people but a lot of them had underlying issues/were old etc. Not saying that's right or wrong but, again, I believe the public hysteria generated by an out of control media is forcing politics to react, whereas if we had real media, cool headed stuff, instead the bonkers out of control shite we have to listen to, then we wouldn't be having to do half the things we're forced to do currently.

It really struck me when I drove from Spain to Portugal the other day. They have a population of 10m with around 2k deaths. Spain on the other hand has been really badly hit. I felt like a spa after a while wearing a mask because hardly anyone there was wearing one in the streets. To go into businesses etc yes, but not strolling around. The Spanish are scratching their heads as to why but the Spanish populations are so concentrated in big cities, they have an ageing population, socially they are extremely touchy and close..there's probably a myriad of factors.

[Ducky]

Wearing one outside does nothing, it's only of use indoors.

I'm happy to do whatever, my immune system is knackered, so I'd rather not take my chances.

[astfgyl]

https://cassandravoices.com/science-environment/covid-19-the-perfect-storm/

Bit of an alternative take here on the mask thing. Whatever anyone thinks about it themselves, the section on the lack of proper debate on the issue of masks and the dividing line it draws between people makes interesting food for thought.

[Pedrito]

'I suspect the mandatory wearing of masks among the general public is motivated by two quasi-political aims. The first is to distract from what is best described as the 'incompetent manslaughter' of several hundred elderly care home residents at the height of the crisis.[iii] Secondly, to pave the way for mandatory vaccinations, the legal case for which has already been set out by Sarah Fulham-McQuillan, Assistant Professor in UCD's Sutherland School of Law,[iv] despite such an intervention not even existing. Such an unprecedented law would obviously be to the direct financial benefit of select pharmaceutical companies'.

Reckon this sums it up lovely