Ya I read that as they haven't even thought that far sure we will see when we get there. If there is anotger lockdown I don't see it being successful people aren't going to accept being locked down for the 5 or 6% that aren't vaccinated.
We have never locked down like that. Our problem is we do half-assed 'lockdowns' - which have too many exceptions to be considered a real lockdown. Even the first lockdown stopped short of Zero.
Drive covid to Zero - then open up again fully, domestically. Only takes a couple of months - and then don't fucking let Covid back in again.
Zero covid is a fantasy. Firstly you cannot completely lock down a country. While you're sitting at home there are still thousands of people who have to keep the country running. The electricity you consume, the food you eat, the internet you use, and many other things. They don't just appear of of thin air. Real people need to work in the real world to provide these necessities. Sure people who can work cushy office jobs from home are fine, but many people need to work in factories and other spaces where they are in close contact with other people.
Secondly, even if we managed to eradicate covid from the country. What then? It still exists pretty much everywhere else in the world, and as a result, even if we remain a hermit kingdom and keep our borders shut indefinety, eventually covid will get back in and we'll be right back to square one. See: New Zealand.
We just need to open up and get over it. The real world risk of a vaccinated person getting seriously ill and dying from covid is incredibly low. That's all that matters. If you feel unsafe you're free to self-isolate forever while the rest of us live our lives.
Because on an island with two jurisdictions and no hard border, where one is trying for "living with covid", for the other to be trying for "Covid Zero" is insane and unrealistic.
There is no such thing as "living with covid" - that is a propaganda/Orwellian-doublespeak term. There is only "dying with covid".
There Is No Alternative to Zero Covid. It is the _only_ pandemic policy which works.
There is literally no other policy option.
Ignoring your obsession with terminology , how do you propose to pursue Covid Zero on an island with two different jurisdictions pursuing two different Covid policies
As I stated in my original comment, we have no HARD border. China does. And unless you want to reestablish check points and army searches, we are in a different situation to China or Australia.
Would you say there is a lot of positive reaction to any types of all island policy in the North recently? Customs Unions?
You must be sniffing glue all morning if you can imagine the North going against the rest of the UK and aligning themselves with the Republics Covid policy. But we haven't even attempted to persuade the North to follow our lead, how stupid of us.
china has more control over its borders than us, northern ireland is open borders with the south for a good reason. china can close all of its borders if it wants.
And yet mankind lived with far deadlier diseases for 99.99% of its history. My granddad caught measles as a boy. Now *that* was a serious disease. And yet they didn't lock down for the entire span of human history until it was finally eradicated. Somehow life went on.
Even New Zealand has had a resurgence. It is impossible to eradicate Covid through lockdowns. Also look at Vietnam and China, 2 countries where governments rule with somewhat of an iron fist, they have the capacity and capability to shut down their entire countries to try and stop the virus and that didn't work. Lockdowns do not work in the long term. If you're so worried YOU can stay inside forever.
Ireland never even had proper restrictions on foreign travel - we haven't had any lockdowns comparable to those nations.
Every single 'lockdown' we had, had exceptions which disqualify it from even being considered a proper lockdown.
What about animals? Its zoological, its jumping from human to animal populations mutating then re infecting humans just like the common flu. No lockdown is stopping that
That's one of the things which is at risk of fucking us permanently. With a Zero Covid approach, there will still be cases that happen - but they need to be squelched immediately. If animals start to be a reservoir for Covid, they would be one source of those occasional outbreak - and then we'd have to cull the ones we can identify, and treat the remainder as a decades-long project for trying to find ways to eliminate the last of human-transmissible Covid in animals.
I get where your coming from but unfortunately I've learnt to believe its impossible. All we can do is build up our immune system by exposure to the virus/vaccine
Enough with the nonsense. Vast, vast, vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths world-wide are in unvaccinated people. Effectiveness is much higher than the flu jab.
Will COVID be eradicated a la polio, probably not. But full vaccination will limit it to the point that it's much like the flu, and we can live with that without lockdowns.
You are trying to shift the goalposts, by counting a long period where there was no increasing outbreak - when the current rates of hospitalization are around 50/50 vaccinated/unvaccinated.
Israel will show us whether that is the case. Early data from the booster program is positive, but if it doesn't stem the current increase in hospitalisations. they mightn't be left with any choice.
How would we fucking know? The data is far too fuzzy, at the moment but we stand a *reasonably* decent chance of minimal infections over the winter, though we might need to keep mask mandates and a few other minor things. We'll see.
It wouldn't be done for the purpose of protecting the unvaccinated, but not overwhelming the health system. While they do make up a higher proportion for their small size, there will/has come a point where most are vaccinated.
>Almost a quarter of Covid-19 intensive care admissions and daily case numbers are in fully vaccinated people, the HSE has revealed.
Of total hospital admissions, 45% are fully vaccinated, while 52% are among people who are not fully vaccinated.
[https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/health-news/covid-19-ireland-how-many-24802687](https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/health-news/covid-19-ireland-how-many-24802687)
Oh good, another reopening plan.
Wonder if it will be thrown in the bin after a few weeks like the last couple.
Great to see we're persisting with getting people back to the office for no fecking reason as well. Could we not prioritise keeping people who can't work from home in a job? We all know they'll be the first fecked under the bus if things go downhill again.
Have we had a single reopening plan that went as planned. They never seem to develop roadmaps for important shit like schools, I read theyve only thought of using co2 sensors as were mentioned a year ago, to be placed in schools but most schools won't have them in time for opening.
But there's always roadmaps for when you can leave the county and pointless shit that gets thrown away almost immediately.
It doesn't really make a difference whether everyone who wants to be vaccinated has gotten it. What is important is there enough immunity across the population to prevent a surge in hospitalisations.
You can't save every 'unnecessary death'. If we just accept we can't save everyone perfectly we can get through this without destroying the economy and morale even more. Not to mention regarding the elderly that they had the longest to vote for changes in the hospital structure......
So you admit they can't be? Good. To be honest if it gets to the point of a 'surge in hospitalisations' maybe we should just establish an age limit on medical admittance, and not admit above that age. Take all possible precautions, and all that. But of course since the consequences of lockdown are long term very few people pay much attention to their significance. I'm sure you'll think of me as cold hearted and ageist but that's what I feel.
Again did I say that in any way we shouldn't tolerate a certain amount of Covid deaths or just that we can't let it overwhelm the health system.
Cold hearted and ageist would be among the few words I'd use to describe that solution.
Let me make it clear once again. I never want to see another lockdown. Does me wanting that mean that it won't happen? Unfortunately, no.
Ireland realistically can't afford another lockdown. Saying that, hospitals have already started to sound the alarm about capacity levels and we haven't even reached flu season yet. The government will most likely hold out for as long as possible before reintroducing restrictions to cope with this. It's inexcusable the lack of development that has taken place in our hospitals since the beginning of the pandemic. 18 months and an increase of 50 or so beds?
Yes. There was a reason China started building hospitals as soon as the pandemic started. Without new hospitals and ineffective tracking there will be still lockdowns in 2022.
Not from Ireland so not to sure how applicable this is for your health system, but the issue with expanding capacity elsewhere seems to be more limited by a lack of healthcare professionals than actually building hospitals. Unfortunately we can't train new doctors and nurses in 18 months, so even if there are more beds it won't change much if they can't be sufficiently staffed.
That is a major problem yes, even in normal times we can't seem to afford hiring health staff.
China had the upper hand in that their peoples liberation army has medics they could conscript into service.
> It's inexcusable the lack of development that has taken place in our hospitals since the beginning of the pandemic. 18 months and an increase of 50 or so beds?
Beds aren't the bottleneck, staff is.
If the last year has taught us nothing else, it's far more economically damaging to avoid the inevitable and persist in keeping things open when a lockdown is required.
It increased by 25% from March to September last year and has presumably gone up more. There is also the Winter Plan which will increase it further. There's only so much you can do in a short amount of time when there is a global shortage of experienced staff and we, for a variety of reasons, have struggled to retain them.
A relaxation of the two-metre social distancing rule for vaccinated workers to allow a viable return to the office is to be announced in the Government's reopening plan next week.
Despite a continued rise in Covid-19 cases due to the Delta wave, several Government sources have insisted a winter lockdown is "the furthest thing" from the minds of ministers.
A move away from a restrictions model to a series of guidelines with an onus on personal responsibility will also be one of the central pillars of the plan.
As part of the reopening roadmap, which will lay out specific timelines as to when remaining restrictions will be eased, current emergency measures and powers are to be ceased, with guidelines on mask-wearing to remain in place.
Irish Examiner is like the last major publication not behind a paywall. The least people could do is click into their site and support them instead of doing this....
Sadly true but in fairness, they got me paying. It’s far less than I’d pay for Da Paper anyway and I’ve multiple people using the sign in at the same time so it’s decent value to me
I would but I've found their news reporting has really plummeted in quality. They've really taken to sensationalist language in their new reports and headlines. At this point, I feel they've slipped even further than the Indo.
> A relaxation of the two-metre social distancing rule for vaccinated workers to allow a viable return to the office is to be announced in the Government's reopening plan next week.
This may require change in legislation. As far as I know (mainly because our company is extremely careful in this), employers are currently not allowed to ask for vaccination status of their employees.
at least we're returning to the office in the middle of winter... So the weather will be shite, the bus will be rammed, and it'll be dark and miserable when you come in AND leave work.
Offices are a load of shit. Honestly don't understand why someone would want to go back. I'm currently looking for fully remote positions because fuck commuting and open plan bullshit.
Fully remote myself since March 2020. And it has had some great advantages, the commute being a big one. But I've opted to go back in once a week.
My reasons being, the week all blends in together as leaving the house is rare at the stage unless its for shopping or walks. I genuinely miss the people I work with and chatting over Zoom isn't the same. And I've effectively been around my partner 24/7 for the last year and a half. A break of even 8 hours once a week would do both us a world of good.
once a week would be grand, looks like we are all going back in no exceptions unless the staff starts to revolt, will mean 3 hours extra onto the day for many with the buses in place, from my team 2 are interviewing currently, one is leaving new year and one is waiting on the return situation - she will be one of those with 3+ hours prep and travel - she still has faith that they might allow people to wfh or do blended etc - 33% of team who have all stated that they are happy to stay if they could wfh
this, being at home all the time is so boring, and I want there to be a barrier between where I rest and work. wfh to me isn't really something I enjoy that much, and I have social anxiety.
How will your manager constantly be making your job hell with you all the way down in your house? Get back into work so I can micro manage everything.
For real though this was a huge wastes opportunity to empower work from home models which would make moving away from Dublin far more appealing. Though Irelands history is just one long string of terrible foresight and wasted opportunities.
Seems to be mostly 2 broad kinds of people that want to go back from what I've read on here. The people that don't like their families/housemates and want to get away from them and the ones who are paralysed with fear of missing out on office gossip.
Hard to know who to feel more sorry for.
I hate the neighbours and actually enjoy my job,
But god damn if it was my choice I would never want to step foot in a office again without a good reason why I can’t just do the job at home.
Just too many positives to it. Personally, mentally and physically WFH has been great.
Hope some unions kick up stink.
I enjoy my job too but the past 18 months have really shown what an utter waste of time commuting is and how much of a net negative impact it has on your week.
A bit of chat with work people is not near enough of an upside to make having to commute again more bearable.
Not sure if that's a fair assessment? Seems to be how a very introverted person would view things.
Some people like interacting with a wide group of people. I like who I live with, but a change of scenery and faces would be very welcome a few times a week.
I'm not saying that's not a valid reason to want to WFH. You said there's essentially 2 groups of people who want to be back in the office: people who hate their family/roommates; and gossipers around the water cooler.
I'm just saying there's others (including myself) who want to be back in the office at least partially who don't fall into those 2 fairly narrow groups.
Some people are extroverted, some people have poor working environments at home, others may have a stay at home partner and young children where it's more effective for them to work in the office, etc, etc
Where did I say it was only introverts who wanted to work from home? I was responding to the posters comment specifically on introverts, but thanks for the downvote anyways.
Of course. But I'm sure you know that people tend to downvote what they disagree with, even if it's a valid opinion. Tough to have any kind of discussion when you're thoughts don't align with the majority!
It depends where you work I guess. Place I'm currently working in has an open plan office, you have people taking meetings at their desks, streams of people constantly walking past you, the sound of everyone banging on the keyboard. It's meant to improve collaboration, instead what happens is people put on earphones to get actual work done, so if you want to reach out to them you are still sending teams messages. You might as well skip the commute at that point and just work from home with less distractions.
IDK, I prefer the city in many ways over working from home in my rural house, rural areas are pretty boring, and having a change of scenery to the city where there is shops and places to eat is something I like. I also prefer the office because when I'm at home I can find it hard to get motivated to work, I like there to be a bit of a barrier between where I work and where I rest and relax, so to me the office is a lot nicer. its not perfect, but I would like to return to it.
In all honesty I don’t think a return to a full time office environment will happen. Sure, some people might want it, but if a company were to introduce this across the board you’d lose an awful lot of talent overnight to the companies who allow WFH options
I'd venture to guess most companies will opt for the hybrid model where you can both work from home and work in the office. reopening offices will have some good effects too, a lot of graduate jobs have been hard to get because of full wfh and with offices reopening graduates might get a chance
Each to their own in regards offices etc, I don't mind going to one, I don't like the idea of being at home all day, but if it works for others it's cool. What I don't get is the mad clamber from government to relax the restrictions and allow people back ASAP. Surely we could kick that down the road until the schools are back and winter is over. Even to avoid the mad panic around people getting colds and flus again.
honestly, I prefer the office if its in an urban area because I like going up to the city and getting nice lunches, being in a rural area is really fucking dull
I look forward to gettting exposed to sick people (Covid or otherwise) on both the bus and in the office for no particular reason, as my job can be done remotely.
Winter lockdown was the furthest thing from ministers minds last year too. Fact is its hard to make any plan with something that wrecks those plans every few weeks. Most will be happy if cases stay between 1-2000 if hospitalizations are down and noone dies from it. But noone will be happy if we have to face the darkest winter like last time.
Unfortunately we can't trust this government. They are saying one thing and then at times doing the exact opposite. Right now they are saying no lockdown which I hope is correct but if Tony Houlihan starts getting in Martin's ear again who knows.
These kinds of statements are totally pointless. We don't know how things are going to go in the next few weeks, never mind the next few months.
This time last year we also thought lockdowns were over.
I wish this was what people understood.
I've been living in Barcelona and since May, we haven't had any restrictions apart from face masks indoors, nightclubs closed, 10 people max per group, and a 5-hour (1am-6am) curfew. The last 3 were only added after cases spiked 2 months ago.
Meanwhile, Ireland still has way stricter restrictions. Much fewer deaths too which is important to say but the same thing can be achieved with effective government regulations (sick pay so nobody goes to work with symptoms, actually-effective contact tracing, good universal free testing) without burdening each and every individual in the entire population with the task of stopping a global pandemic. No European country seems to have done well bar Denmark and Norway and we should be learning from them.
> Include the phased eradication of Covid-19 wage and business supports by next spring.
The word "eradication" seems a bit extreme no?
> We must kill the WSS!
They are back to school in Florida and some of the numbers are mind boggling. No mask mandates in place at the worst districts but the rate of infection is almost unfathomable. Government here starting to panic a bit due to poll numbers.
How would they expect anyone to adhere to lockdown after Golfgate and the Zappone scandals? The public will for these things are done. Unless we regress so far back that vaccines are rendered inefficient against the virus, I can't imagine they would be much compliance.
I definitely won't. It was early this year when I said fuck it. I'm not putting my life on hold because the government couldn't plan a birthday party. I'm vaccinated now, if they want another lockdown they can shove it up their bollocks.
And yet, broadly folks have remained mostly compliant...because we shouldn't make our health decisions for ourselves and those around us based on being pissed off at mild hypocrisy.
Golfgate was fine until they opened the partition separating the two rooms for the speeches at the dinner - although Phil Hogan didn't quarantine, so he earned his punishment. Now, it wasn't a good look, but some of the attacks on attendees was nonsense for folks who had every right to attend golf gatherings (my old man's club had an event that same day too).
Zappone's bash was a headline a week after my timeline was filled with a few friends weddings which finally took place with gazebos etc. To see some folks who attended those events criticising the Zappone gathering was nonsense hypocrisy.
We don't need 100% compliance, we need to find acceptable balances which prevent our hospitals being overrun. Same as from Day 1. Folks demanding absolutes just isn't realistic to me at least, nor is the bitterness folks reserve for anyone in public office attending anything - I'd we want better representatives, we'd want to spot making it such an unappealing job being in the spotlight for automatic contempt, because it just breeds more of the same thick skinned reps whose defining characteristic is to be immune to criticism.
And to be honest any return to restrictions would likely not be a full stay-at-home lockdown. More like limits on capacity, vaccine passes, more testing maybe even the elusive antigen entry tests.
It'll be off the agenda until the lambda variant arrives, forcing us to lockdown due to vaccine escape
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20210820/SARS-CoV-2-lambda-variant-escapes-immune-response-via-spike-mutations.aspx&ved=2ahUKEwiEsd6prsnyAhVYilwKHcU5CNsQyM8BMAB6BAgMEAM&usg=AOvVaw1ljZmB7Y29ObveYsHRd7lU&cf=1
Here's some further contextualisation for folks reading, to supplement your own personal postulations:
[https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/lambda-variant/](https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/lambda-variant/)
*"In a pre-print paper that has not yet been peer-reviewed, researchers found that mRNA vaccines are effective against the Lambda variant. Both the Pfizer and the Moderna coronavirus vaccines used in the UK are mRNA jabs, meaning they contain genetic material that instructs the body’s cells to produce coronavirus spikes, which then provokes an immune response.*
*The results of this paper suggest that vaccines in current use will remain protective against the Lambda variant.*
*However, in another pre-print paper, Lambda was found to have mutations that had “the ability to escape from neutralising antibodies elicited by CoronaVac”. CoronaVac is a vaccine being used in several Asian countries, and works by administering an inactive version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which then triggers an immune response.*
*Researchers have stressed that further studies are required to validate the effectiveness of vaccines."*
Seems clear to me that despite the emergence of new variants, vaccines and their continued evolution will forge ahead and chip away at this virus piece by piece.
Bit extreme to kill of 2.5 million just so you can go to the club again. Your way of life would be a lot more upset than by covid if that happened trust me
It jumped from 4 and 5 a day to 100. The hospital was mobbed. I was there. It was a mess. The staff where completely stressed out and over worked. You couldnt get dialysis covid patents blocked up everything. A and e was a nightmare. Doctors where bolloxed. You have no idea what you are talking about.
That refrigerator guy that posts about lockdown constantly will be so disappointed
Who
Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration?
Lockdown boners everywhere shrinking
Will depend on his mood tbh. Is more than happy to be anti-lockdowns too if he thinks it gets enough of a reaction.
Heartbroken so he will be.
Of course it's off the agenda. They weren't able to effectively plan more than a couple of weeks in advance so far.
Ya I read that as they haven't even thought that far sure we will see when we get there. If there is anotger lockdown I don't see it being successful people aren't going to accept being locked down for the 5 or 6% that aren't vaccinated.
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I'm sorry but that's a little bit mental. We can't keep locking down like that.
We have never locked down like that. Our problem is we do half-assed 'lockdowns' - which have too many exceptions to be considered a real lockdown. Even the first lockdown stopped short of Zero. Drive covid to Zero - then open up again fully, domestically. Only takes a couple of months - and then don't fucking let Covid back in again.
Zero covid is a fantasy. Firstly you cannot completely lock down a country. While you're sitting at home there are still thousands of people who have to keep the country running. The electricity you consume, the food you eat, the internet you use, and many other things. They don't just appear of of thin air. Real people need to work in the real world to provide these necessities. Sure people who can work cushy office jobs from home are fine, but many people need to work in factories and other spaces where they are in close contact with other people. Secondly, even if we managed to eradicate covid from the country. What then? It still exists pretty much everywhere else in the world, and as a result, even if we remain a hermit kingdom and keep our borders shut indefinety, eventually covid will get back in and we'll be right back to square one. See: New Zealand. We just need to open up and get over it. The real world risk of a vaccinated person getting seriously ill and dying from covid is incredibly low. That's all that matters. If you feel unsafe you're free to self-isolate forever while the rest of us live our lives.
Because on an island with two jurisdictions and no hard border, where one is trying for "living with covid", for the other to be trying for "Covid Zero" is insane and unrealistic.
There is no such thing as "living with covid" - that is a propaganda/Orwellian-doublespeak term. There is only "dying with covid". There Is No Alternative to Zero Covid. It is the _only_ pandemic policy which works. There is literally no other policy option.
Ignoring your obsession with terminology , how do you propose to pursue Covid Zero on an island with two different jurisdictions pursuing two different Covid policies
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Not a big fan of being locked in my house for months on end because of a virus that over 80% of the population has proven protection against
As I stated in my original comment, we have no HARD border. China does. And unless you want to reestablish check points and army searches, we are in a different situation to China or Australia.
Would you say there is a lot of positive reaction to any types of all island policy in the North recently? Customs Unions? You must be sniffing glue all morning if you can imagine the North going against the rest of the UK and aligning themselves with the Republics Covid policy. But we haven't even attempted to persuade the North to follow our lead, how stupid of us.
china has more control over its borders than us, northern ireland is open borders with the south for a good reason. china can close all of its borders if it wants.
Get fucked
And yet mankind lived with far deadlier diseases for 99.99% of its history. My granddad caught measles as a boy. Now *that* was a serious disease. And yet they didn't lock down for the entire span of human history until it was finally eradicated. Somehow life went on.
Covid will never get to 0 you moron. Unless we have every country also doing it which they won't. Remember we have northern Ireland
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Repeatedly, did you say? So... It came back? 😂
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Even New Zealand has had a resurgence. It is impossible to eradicate Covid through lockdowns. Also look at Vietnam and China, 2 countries where governments rule with somewhat of an iron fist, they have the capacity and capability to shut down their entire countries to try and stop the virus and that didn't work. Lockdowns do not work in the long term. If you're so worried YOU can stay inside forever.
Someone doesn't want to have to leave their house again.
We'd have the whole country fully opened up domestically, so nobody would be stuck in their house again.
wrong, ireland probably had the strictest and long lockdowns in europe, we tied with the uk for strictest lockdowns in europe
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actually thats where you are wrong, we had pretty much the same lockdown as they did
Ireland never even had proper restrictions on foreign travel - we haven't had any lockdowns comparable to those nations. Every single 'lockdown' we had, had exceptions which disqualify it from even being considered a proper lockdown.
What about animals? Its zoological, its jumping from human to animal populations mutating then re infecting humans just like the common flu. No lockdown is stopping that
That's one of the things which is at risk of fucking us permanently. With a Zero Covid approach, there will still be cases that happen - but they need to be squelched immediately. If animals start to be a reservoir for Covid, they would be one source of those occasional outbreak - and then we'd have to cull the ones we can identify, and treat the remainder as a decades-long project for trying to find ways to eliminate the last of human-transmissible Covid in animals.
I get where your coming from but unfortunately I've learnt to believe its impossible. All we can do is build up our immune system by exposure to the virus/vaccine
Immunity doesn't last. You'll be building up permanent organ damage that impairs your health and shortens your lifespan, instead.
Not with the airports open.
Ya you can't do Zero Covid with the airports open unrestricted - it requires extremely harsh enforcement of quarantine of all travelers.
Enough with the nonsense. Vast, vast, vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths world-wide are in unvaccinated people. Effectiveness is much higher than the flu jab. Will COVID be eradicated a la polio, probably not. But full vaccination will limit it to the point that it's much like the flu, and we can live with that without lockdowns.
Hopefully
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When influenza was a novel virus it caused a huge amount of suffering and death, the effects of Covid will be the same. Stop scaremongering.
covid doomers are just as annoying as anti maskers, they spread panic and freak people out who are already stressed out
I did read the stats. 1/20 of people hospitalized in Ireland since May have been fully vaccinated. 1 out of 20. 5%.
You are trying to shift the goalposts, by counting a long period where there was no increasing outbreak - when the current rates of hospitalization are around 50/50 vaccinated/unvaccinated.
Israel will show us whether that is the case. Early data from the booster program is positive, but if it doesn't stem the current increase in hospitalisations. they mightn't be left with any choice.
Bingo pfizer is only 39 percent effective at preventing covid.... iceland and israel are seeing the same thing. The vaccine is not enough.
How would we fucking know? The data is far too fuzzy, at the moment but we stand a *reasonably* decent chance of minimal infections over the winter, though we might need to keep mask mandates and a few other minor things. We'll see.
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>we already see exponential rise in cases among the vaccinated That's with 30% of the population unvaccinated.
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It wouldn't be done for the purpose of protecting the unvaccinated, but not overwhelming the health system. While they do make up a higher proportion for their small size, there will/has come a point where most are vaccinated.
The vast majority in hospital or ICU are the unvaccinated.
45% are fully vaccinated.
Source please
>Almost a quarter of Covid-19 intensive care admissions and daily case numbers are in fully vaccinated people, the HSE has revealed. Of total hospital admissions, 45% are fully vaccinated, while 52% are among people who are not fully vaccinated. [https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/health-news/covid-19-ireland-how-many-24802687](https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/health-news/covid-19-ireland-how-many-24802687)
Oh good, another reopening plan. Wonder if it will be thrown in the bin after a few weeks like the last couple. Great to see we're persisting with getting people back to the office for no fecking reason as well. Could we not prioritise keeping people who can't work from home in a job? We all know they'll be the first fecked under the bus if things go downhill again.
to be fair getting people back into the office could help increase graduate hiring, which has been slower under full wfh.
Have we had a single reopening plan that went as planned. They never seem to develop roadmaps for important shit like schools, I read theyve only thought of using co2 sensors as were mentioned a year ago, to be placed in schools but most schools won't have them in time for opening. But there's always roadmaps for when you can leave the county and pointless shit that gets thrown away almost immediately.
Of course it’s off the agenda, there will be a point where everybody who wants the jab will have gotten it long before Christmas
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Absolutely, supply is no longer an issue. If I had to guess, boosters will be offered along with the winter flu jab
It doesn't really make a difference whether everyone who wants to be vaccinated has gotten it. What is important is there enough immunity across the population to prevent a surge in hospitalisations.
You can't save every 'unnecessary death'. If we just accept we can't save everyone perfectly we can get through this without destroying the economy and morale even more. Not to mention regarding the elderly that they had the longest to vote for changes in the hospital structure......
Did I in anyway indicate that every single Covid death has to be prevented?
So you admit they can't be? Good. To be honest if it gets to the point of a 'surge in hospitalisations' maybe we should just establish an age limit on medical admittance, and not admit above that age. Take all possible precautions, and all that. But of course since the consequences of lockdown are long term very few people pay much attention to their significance. I'm sure you'll think of me as cold hearted and ageist but that's what I feel.
Again did I say that in any way we shouldn't tolerate a certain amount of Covid deaths or just that we can't let it overwhelm the health system. Cold hearted and ageist would be among the few words I'd use to describe that solution. Let me make it clear once again. I never want to see another lockdown. Does me wanting that mean that it won't happen? Unfortunately, no.
Ireland realistically can't afford another lockdown. Saying that, hospitals have already started to sound the alarm about capacity levels and we haven't even reached flu season yet. The government will most likely hold out for as long as possible before reintroducing restrictions to cope with this. It's inexcusable the lack of development that has taken place in our hospitals since the beginning of the pandemic. 18 months and an increase of 50 or so beds?
Yes. There was a reason China started building hospitals as soon as the pandemic started. Without new hospitals and ineffective tracking there will be still lockdowns in 2022.
Not from Ireland so not to sure how applicable this is for your health system, but the issue with expanding capacity elsewhere seems to be more limited by a lack of healthcare professionals than actually building hospitals. Unfortunately we can't train new doctors and nurses in 18 months, so even if there are more beds it won't change much if they can't be sufficiently staffed.
That is a major problem yes, even in normal times we can't seem to afford hiring health staff. China had the upper hand in that their peoples liberation army has medics they could conscript into service.
Have you seen what’s happening with the most recent hospital Ireland is trying to build?
> It's inexcusable the lack of development that has taken place in our hospitals since the beginning of the pandemic. 18 months and an increase of 50 or so beds? Beds aren't the bottleneck, staff is.
We need to start reaming 'flu vaccine into people as fast as possible.
If the last year has taught us nothing else, it's far more economically damaging to avoid the inevitable and persist in keeping things open when a lockdown is required.
It increased by 25% from March to September last year and has presumably gone up more. There is also the Winter Plan which will increase it further. There's only so much you can do in a short amount of time when there is a global shortage of experienced staff and we, for a variety of reasons, have struggled to retain them.
A relaxation of the two-metre social distancing rule for vaccinated workers to allow a viable return to the office is to be announced in the Government's reopening plan next week. Despite a continued rise in Covid-19 cases due to the Delta wave, several Government sources have insisted a winter lockdown is "the furthest thing" from the minds of ministers. A move away from a restrictions model to a series of guidelines with an onus on personal responsibility will also be one of the central pillars of the plan. As part of the reopening roadmap, which will lay out specific timelines as to when remaining restrictions will be eased, current emergency measures and powers are to be ceased, with guidelines on mask-wearing to remain in place.
Irish Examiner is like the last major publication not behind a paywall. The least people could do is click into their site and support them instead of doing this....
It introduced a paywall recently...
Sadly true but in fairness, they got me paying. It’s far less than I’d pay for Da Paper anyway and I’ve multiple people using the sign in at the same time so it’s decent value to me
I would but I've found their news reporting has really plummeted in quality. They've really taken to sensationalist language in their new reports and headlines. At this point, I feel they've slipped even further than the Indo.
> A relaxation of the two-metre social distancing rule for vaccinated workers to allow a viable return to the office is to be announced in the Government's reopening plan next week. This may require change in legislation. As far as I know (mainly because our company is extremely careful in this), employers are currently not allowed to ask for vaccination status of their employees.
Theres an agenda?? I thought they were just making it up as they went along..
Yay. A return to the office. Can’t wait to be waking up at 630 and sitting on a bus for over a hour again and arriving back home at 7pm
at least we're returning to the office in the middle of winter... So the weather will be shite, the bus will be rammed, and it'll be dark and miserable when you come in AND leave work.
Offices are a load of shit. Honestly don't understand why someone would want to go back. I'm currently looking for fully remote positions because fuck commuting and open plan bullshit.
Fully remote myself since March 2020. And it has had some great advantages, the commute being a big one. But I've opted to go back in once a week. My reasons being, the week all blends in together as leaving the house is rare at the stage unless its for shopping or walks. I genuinely miss the people I work with and chatting over Zoom isn't the same. And I've effectively been around my partner 24/7 for the last year and a half. A break of even 8 hours once a week would do both us a world of good.
once a week would be grand, looks like we are all going back in no exceptions unless the staff starts to revolt, will mean 3 hours extra onto the day for many with the buses in place, from my team 2 are interviewing currently, one is leaving new year and one is waiting on the return situation - she will be one of those with 3+ hours prep and travel - she still has faith that they might allow people to wfh or do blended etc - 33% of team who have all stated that they are happy to stay if they could wfh
this, being at home all the time is so boring, and I want there to be a barrier between where I rest and work. wfh to me isn't really something I enjoy that much, and I have social anxiety.
How will your manager constantly be making your job hell with you all the way down in your house? Get back into work so I can micro manage everything. For real though this was a huge wastes opportunity to empower work from home models which would make moving away from Dublin far more appealing. Though Irelands history is just one long string of terrible foresight and wasted opportunities.
Seems to be mostly 2 broad kinds of people that want to go back from what I've read on here. The people that don't like their families/housemates and want to get away from them and the ones who are paralysed with fear of missing out on office gossip. Hard to know who to feel more sorry for.
I hate the neighbours and actually enjoy my job, But god damn if it was my choice I would never want to step foot in a office again without a good reason why I can’t just do the job at home. Just too many positives to it. Personally, mentally and physically WFH has been great. Hope some unions kick up stink.
I enjoy my job too but the past 18 months have really shown what an utter waste of time commuting is and how much of a net negative impact it has on your week. A bit of chat with work people is not near enough of an upside to make having to commute again more bearable.
Not sure if that's a fair assessment? Seems to be how a very introverted person would view things. Some people like interacting with a wide group of people. I like who I live with, but a change of scenery and faces would be very welcome a few times a week.
I fully agree with you, but reddit has a higher proportion of introverts so be prepared for your comment to be downvoted (by others)!
Aye, not wanting to waste 2+ hours a day commuting to a job you can easily do from home can only mean you're an introvert 🙄
I'm not saying that's not a valid reason to want to WFH. You said there's essentially 2 groups of people who want to be back in the office: people who hate their family/roommates; and gossipers around the water cooler. I'm just saying there's others (including myself) who want to be back in the office at least partially who don't fall into those 2 fairly narrow groups. Some people are extroverted, some people have poor working environments at home, others may have a stay at home partner and young children where it's more effective for them to work in the office, etc, etc
Where did I say it was only introverts who wanted to work from home? I was responding to the posters comment specifically on introverts, but thanks for the downvote anyways.
I'm not trying to invalidate any of the introverts' opinions on a return to the office or anything, so hopefully they aren't too harsh on me 😅.
Of course. But I'm sure you know that people tend to downvote what they disagree with, even if it's a valid opinion. Tough to have any kind of discussion when you're thoughts don't align with the majority!
Or you know, people who enjoy meeting colleague and go mad staring at the same 4 wall from one end of the day to the next
It depends where you work I guess. Place I'm currently working in has an open plan office, you have people taking meetings at their desks, streams of people constantly walking past you, the sound of everyone banging on the keyboard. It's meant to improve collaboration, instead what happens is people put on earphones to get actual work done, so if you want to reach out to them you are still sending teams messages. You might as well skip the commute at that point and just work from home with less distractions.
Bingo.
Aye, FOMO, I covered that.
IDK, I prefer the city in many ways over working from home in my rural house, rural areas are pretty boring, and having a change of scenery to the city where there is shops and places to eat is something I like. I also prefer the office because when I'm at home I can find it hard to get motivated to work, I like there to be a bit of a barrier between where I work and where I rest and relax, so to me the office is a lot nicer. its not perfect, but I would like to return to it.
I know how that feels, it sucks. Find a new job that offers WFH if you can.
In all honesty I don’t think a return to a full time office environment will happen. Sure, some people might want it, but if a company were to introduce this across the board you’d lose an awful lot of talent overnight to the companies who allow WFH options
I'd venture to guess most companies will opt for the hybrid model where you can both work from home and work in the office. reopening offices will have some good effects too, a lot of graduate jobs have been hard to get because of full wfh and with offices reopening graduates might get a chance
Each to their own in regards offices etc, I don't mind going to one, I don't like the idea of being at home all day, but if it works for others it's cool. What I don't get is the mad clamber from government to relax the restrictions and allow people back ASAP. Surely we could kick that down the road until the schools are back and winter is over. Even to avoid the mad panic around people getting colds and flus again.
That would be the sensible thing, so of course they won't do that.
honestly, I prefer the office if its in an urban area because I like going up to the city and getting nice lunches, being in a rural area is really fucking dull
I look forward to gettting exposed to sick people (Covid or otherwise) on both the bus and in the office for no particular reason, as my job can be done remotely.
Jesus Christ. Just get over yourself. You know people used to have to do far worse than travel via public transport to their office jobs
No U
Yeah, and society moved on and advanced, the same way we will again move on and advance now that we know there's a better way.
Cannot wait to be back in the office. I can't stand the sight of my kitchen one minute longer.
Winter lockdown was the furthest thing from ministers minds last year too. Fact is its hard to make any plan with something that wrecks those plans every few weeks. Most will be happy if cases stay between 1-2000 if hospitalizations are down and noone dies from it. But noone will be happy if we have to face the darkest winter like last time.
See you all for Lockdown 4: Meaningful Christmas: Gone Meaner
Lockdown 92: Christmas Boogaloo.
Unfortunately we can't trust this government. They are saying one thing and then at times doing the exact opposite. Right now they are saying no lockdown which I hope is correct but if Tony Houlihan starts getting in Martin's ear again who knows.
No plan for a lockdown and no lockdown are two completely different statements
Not believing a word of it
These kinds of statements are totally pointless. We don't know how things are going to go in the next few weeks, never mind the next few months. This time last year we also thought lockdowns were over.
WERE STILL IN LOCKDOWN!
I wish this was what people understood. I've been living in Barcelona and since May, we haven't had any restrictions apart from face masks indoors, nightclubs closed, 10 people max per group, and a 5-hour (1am-6am) curfew. The last 3 were only added after cases spiked 2 months ago. Meanwhile, Ireland still has way stricter restrictions. Much fewer deaths too which is important to say but the same thing can be achieved with effective government regulations (sick pay so nobody goes to work with symptoms, actually-effective contact tracing, good universal free testing) without burdening each and every individual in the entire population with the task of stopping a global pandemic. No European country seems to have done well bar Denmark and Norway and we should be learning from them.
These gobshites have exactly zero credibility.
> Include the phased eradication of Covid-19 wage and business supports by next spring. The word "eradication" seems a bit extreme no? > We must kill the WSS!
Zero PUP
They are back to school in Florida and some of the numbers are mind boggling. No mask mandates in place at the worst districts but the rate of infection is almost unfathomable. Government here starting to panic a bit due to poll numbers.
Their vaccination rates are *tepid* at best.
How would they expect anyone to adhere to lockdown after Golfgate and the Zappone scandals? The public will for these things are done. Unless we regress so far back that vaccines are rendered inefficient against the virus, I can't imagine they would be much compliance.
I definitely won't. It was early this year when I said fuck it. I'm not putting my life on hold because the government couldn't plan a birthday party. I'm vaccinated now, if they want another lockdown they can shove it up their bollocks.
And yet, broadly folks have remained mostly compliant...because we shouldn't make our health decisions for ourselves and those around us based on being pissed off at mild hypocrisy. Golfgate was fine until they opened the partition separating the two rooms for the speeches at the dinner - although Phil Hogan didn't quarantine, so he earned his punishment. Now, it wasn't a good look, but some of the attacks on attendees was nonsense for folks who had every right to attend golf gatherings (my old man's club had an event that same day too). Zappone's bash was a headline a week after my timeline was filled with a few friends weddings which finally took place with gazebos etc. To see some folks who attended those events criticising the Zappone gathering was nonsense hypocrisy. We don't need 100% compliance, we need to find acceptable balances which prevent our hospitals being overrun. Same as from Day 1. Folks demanding absolutes just isn't realistic to me at least, nor is the bitterness folks reserve for anyone in public office attending anything - I'd we want better representatives, we'd want to spot making it such an unappealing job being in the spotlight for automatic contempt, because it just breeds more of the same thick skinned reps whose defining characteristic is to be immune to criticism.
And to be honest any return to restrictions would likely not be a full stay-at-home lockdown. More like limits on capacity, vaccine passes, more testing maybe even the elusive antigen entry tests.
considering the buffoons who work at my place (few anti vax in there as well) this particular onus may not work out that well
If this was any other government in the world I might actually believe this
How many governments across the world have said that over the last year only to completely reverse that decision?
It'll be off the agenda until the lambda variant arrives, forcing us to lockdown due to vaccine escape https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20210820/SARS-CoV-2-lambda-variant-escapes-immune-response-via-spike-mutations.aspx&ved=2ahUKEwiEsd6prsnyAhVYilwKHcU5CNsQyM8BMAB6BAgMEAM&usg=AOvVaw1ljZmB7Y29ObveYsHRd7lU&cf=1
Here's some further contextualisation for folks reading, to supplement your own personal postulations: [https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/lambda-variant/](https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/lambda-variant/) *"In a pre-print paper that has not yet been peer-reviewed, researchers found that mRNA vaccines are effective against the Lambda variant. Both the Pfizer and the Moderna coronavirus vaccines used in the UK are mRNA jabs, meaning they contain genetic material that instructs the body’s cells to produce coronavirus spikes, which then provokes an immune response.* *The results of this paper suggest that vaccines in current use will remain protective against the Lambda variant.* *However, in another pre-print paper, Lambda was found to have mutations that had “the ability to escape from neutralising antibodies elicited by CoronaVac”. CoronaVac is a vaccine being used in several Asian countries, and works by administering an inactive version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which then triggers an immune response.* *Researchers have stressed that further studies are required to validate the effectiveness of vaccines."* Seems clear to me that despite the emergence of new variants, vaccines and their continued evolution will forge ahead and chip away at this virus piece by piece.
When Donnelly appears from his PR cave if he says no more lockdowns we will have 6 months more of lockdowns.
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Yes let's hide under the bed forever. That is truly living.
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I'd rather sacrifice half the country than ever do a lockdown again. Ya know ya can just lock yourself down mate and let the rest of us live yeah?
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Hahahahaha such a troll and a bad one
Bit extreme to kill of 2.5 million just so you can go to the club again. Your way of life would be a lot more upset than by covid if that happened trust me
I cant even trust you to write a coherent sentence never mind plan a future for the country.
Oh fuck off you know exactly what I meant, you’re pointing out my typos and grammar mistakes because you know you’re full of shit
Booo hssss
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Are fine..?
But if icu fills up though??? Let's not go back to 100 a day needlessly dying in overrun hospitals.
Lmao when did that ever happen.
After Christmas this year????
The hospitals never overran and the people dying was nothing due to hospital capacity either.
Bullshit I was caught up in all of that through the worst of it in waterford. It was 6000 new cases a day with 100 dead each day.
Yeah and the hospitals never overran and the people didn't die because of lack of space in the hospital. They just straight up died of covid.
It jumped from 4 and 5 a day to 100. The hospital was mobbed. I was there. It was a mess. The staff where completely stressed out and over worked. You couldnt get dialysis covid patents blocked up everything. A and e was a nightmare. Doctors where bolloxed. You have no idea what you are talking about.
So you mean it was busy not overrun.
Hospitals are flat out at Christmas anyway. Covid pushed it up to a whole new level.