Coronavirus

[astfgyl]

Here, it's high time a little humour was injected into this discussion..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZNWzAlqFpA

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Even more high time now...

[astfgyl]

Even more high time now...

And still we wait...

[Eoin McLove]

Even as far as people's mental health goes, the prolonging of frankly nutty rules like how many people and from how many households may meet up at once, plus the complete shut down of so many avenues of leisure- aspects of life that are integral you our well being- and knowing we can't travel,  or can only travel to certain places etc. is detrimental,  I think. Particularly now that schools are open again. There is zero consistency to the approach.

My wife was saying she heard an expert saying that the masks have been effective in an unforseen way.  By mingling in the community with people who have Covid, and sharing miniscule amounts of droplets through the masks, it seems people have developed some level of immunity to the virus in a quite natural way. So maybe proceeding with normal life but with the minor adjustments of social distancing, wearing masks and washing hands regularly, might be the solution.

The suspended animation approach was a perfectly lucid short term approach but fuck this shite six months down the road.   

[Trev]

So the hospitals never did get overrun with the sick and dying as was expected

Not too sure on that, it's only anecdotal but everyone herself works with said March and April were absolutely hell to work through with how busy it was, as worst as they've ever seen it, but then the decimation to the health service would have something to answer to there

I think I'm pretty much at the point that the whole approach has to be reconsidered. They pushed for schools to reopen, and then start locking down because of a rise in cases? The contradictory idea of  its grand to go for a few pints now, but fathers aren't allowed into maternity hospitals?

I'm certainly not getting into any of the mad conspiracy stuff, but a clear definite road forward needs to be announced instead of the reactionary groundhog bollocks they're doing at the moment

[astfgyl]

I think we need to lay the conspiracy stuff to rest and just get into honest questioning of the whole lark.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

So, imagine you're a policy maker right now, at this moment in Ireland. What do you do?

[Trev]

So, imagine you're a policy maker right now, at this moment in Ireland. What do you do?

Fall asleep during a Dáil session?

[astfgyl]

So, imagine you're a policy maker right now, at this moment in Ireland. What do you do?

Fall asleep during a Dáil session?

I persist with the idea that we are trying to slowly work our way through a deadly epidemic, and slowly try to bring things back to normal at a pace that seems like it is the public who are to blame for the fact we are still in this situation, and hand all of my decisions over to a task force so that I can say I'm only acting on best expert advice for the good of us all, until someone comes up with a vaccine and then we can say we are saved and celebrate.

If it was honestly me and not an actual politician, I would say hey lads we did the thing we thought was best for you all and we tried to keep you all safe but now that we see it didn't turn out as was predicted we are going to open the whole lot up, advise caution as in regular flu season, beef up infection control in nursing homes or otherwise vulnerable settings, ditch the mass testing and concentrate on the sick people and use the number of hospitalisations as the meter for any future response measures and review the situation every week. I would also make the health service fit for purpose so that if anything like this was to happen in the future we would be in a robust position to deal with it, although that is playing the long game rather than the 5 year plan we usually make. But that is fairytale stuff.

What approach would you take yourself?

Edit: Here is an interesting tale that may be somewhere in the ballpark of what is going on around the world at the moment. All perfectly innocent and understandable and involves no conspiracy. It is sort of how I feel about the current situation although there are a lot more variables and the media hype and saturation to contend with this time around. It is especially pertinent to the nursing home situation, where deaths were written on without any form of test whatsoever, and entirely due to circumstantial evidence:

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22whoop.html

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

This caught me off guard: French people admiring Ireland's five level plan. That should go some way to letting you know how fucked things are elsewhere, at least!
https://twitter.com/TBaubet/status/1307721101682913280?s=19

[Cailleach]

So the hospitals never did get overrun with the sick and dying as was expected

I'm certainly not getting into any of the mad conspiracy stuff, but a clear definite road forward needs to be announced instead of the reactionary groundhog bollocks they're doing at the moment

The road forward is a series of opening up and locking down until a vaccine comes along next year. I recall a HSE Consultant on another forum outlining this way back in March, and commentating on how more and more people would lose confidence in the approach the longer this policy went on. For sure the contradictory messaging does not help matters.  The alternative is just letting it run through the community, but at present most people do not want to see that happen.  Although, the longer this goes on more people will begin to embrace that idea.  If a successful Vaccine does not become available by April next year it maybe that we end up reaching a tipping point. Will the government then decide to let it rip through the community, knowing that the Health Service may not be able to cope. Will it come to a point where that is seen as the  unavoidable option. I don't envy the people having to make these calls.

[Trev]

So the hospitals never did get overrun with the sick and dying as was expected

I'm certainly not getting into any of the mad conspiracy stuff, but a clear definite road forward needs to be announced instead of the reactionary groundhog bollocks they're doing at the moment

The road forward is a series of opening up and locking down until a vaccine comes along next year. I recall a HSE Consultant on another forum outlining this way back in March, and commentating on how more and more people would lose confidence in the approach the longer this policy went on. For sure the contradictory messaging does not help matters.  The alternative is just letting it run through the community, but at present most people do not want to see that happen.  Although, the longer this goes on more people will begin to embrace that idea.  If a successful Vaccine does not become available by April next year it maybe that we end up reaching a tipping point. Will the government then decide to let it rip through the community, knowing that the Health Service may not be able to cope. Will it come to a point where that is seen as the  unavoidable option. I don't envy the people having to make these calls.

Yeah it's the contradictory elements I really have issue with more than anything. If they put out the reasoning behind them more transparently I reckon people would have a bit more faith in them. Although they could have and I just haven't seen it, been a bit fatigued with the whole thing recently and haven't been paying much attention to the news

I guess as well its putting a lot of hope in a vaccine, if that never comes around, or is years away, will it just be a case of constant opening up and locking down which won't be sustainable either?

[astfgyl]

Have a read of this if interested in another opinion on it all:

https://docs4opendebate.be/en/open-letter/

[Pedrito]

Great read. It doesn't say how many doctors support it from what I see?

[astfgyl]

They are all listed on one of the tabs on the top of the page. I'd have to look into them all to prove they are not Dr Nick Riviera though. If what it says is true, it's great news anyway.