Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (left) and Minister for Health Simon Harris at a press briefing on Easter Sunday in Government Buildings
Via Michael Smith, editor of Village magazine [full article at link below]:
Those who predicted swamped ICUs, scandalous shortages of equipment and overflowing morgues in Ireland were utterly wrong. If you haven’t realised that, you’re not following.
The Irish Times, Irish Independent, RTÉ and other media in Ireland have failed their democratic duty to keep the public aware of the significance of the evolving pattern of Coronavirus cases in Ireland over the last three weeks.
There may indeed be “the darkest days ahead” as the Taoiseach intoned, to media head-nodding, on Easter Sunday, but there is no evidence for it.
I am not saying this to be provocative but because it is the truth.
There is a pattern of reported cases, it is just that the media have not followed it, or conveyed what the pattern indicates as the probable outcome of at least the first wave of Coronavirus cases and deaths in Ireland.
Their job was not to convey this as a certainty but as the probability, based on the curves – the data.
Instead they have plied, and continue hour after hour to ply, pictures of improvised morgues, invitations to submit stories about deceased love ones, pieces about our non-existent devastating shortages of PPE and ventilators, and of rockstars still organising emergency imports of it, and po-faced pieces about how funerals, so central of course to Irish life, will never be the same again….
…The Department of Health oversaw a system underprepared for a pandemic and then specifically underestimated the dangers from China – on 20 February the Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan ineptly faced a camera and said: “We don’t expect to see anything more than individual cases occurring that we believe we’ll be well-positioned to manage within the next couple of months”.
Within a few weeks, however, the official view had flipped the other way and by 8 March Paul Reid, CEO of the Health Service Executive (HSE), was endorsing a report in the Business Post which quoted the health authorities massively overestimating cases.
The lead story in that newspaper on that day five weeks ago predicted 1.9 million infected cases for Ireland which would have implied 68,000 deaths, since the death rate given by the WHO at the time was 3.4%.
The report did not say there “might” or “would probably” be 1.9 million cases.
Its best-selling headline on March 8, a date on which there had been no deaths in Ireland, was “Irish health authorities predict 1.9m people will fall ill with coronavirus”; the subheadline was “Up to 50 per cent of cases projected in a three-week period, while the new figures raise fears of intense pressure on health service”. The premise was that we would see 30% daily increases in cases. The smaller print of the report clarified that the prognosis depended on there being no lockdown measures….[more at link below]
Media fails to report truth – success in Ireland’s handling of Coronavirus (Michael Smith, Village)
Speaking of Village, when’s the new issue out? Does it even have a print issue anymore?
“This really bad situation, which nobody really understands fully, didn’t play out so far as bad as the politicians told us it might. I’m so angry with the media right now.”
That’s how I read it too.
Boohoo poor me, I don’t want to be in quarantine.
Hansel aka Cian. ffs
You think I’m Cian?
Because two people can’t share the same opinion?
Why wouldn’t I be “newsjustin”?
Shock horror, newspapers create hype over worst possible outcome to attract sales and views on sites.
Come on lads, people need to take responsibility to build their own views from this sensationalist crap. You need to critique what’s been put in front of you. Yes act on advice from authorities, but critique what the media opinions say.
RTE in particular are the scaremongering masters. Love misery. Always have. Look at their scheduling of tv during this most recent episode. Never a good news story in this country.
I listen to RTE’s radio compilation of the best of the week podcast. I have to agree with you, sometimes I listen and think it is just one tragedy after another.
ever consider that we don’t have the worst case scenario because people were well warned about the worst case scenario?
Bizarre.
Just because we avoided the worst case scenario isn’t a reason to celebrate.
In the words of that Cork lad:
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
There’s a lot we probably won’t know about how we’re doing until well after.
Well done Micheal, in your Ivory Tower. Are there any deaths Covid related (please ignore the 100k so far)? Will this rise – no, the health experts are all wrong. Do you have any children off school or elderly relations cocooning? Probably not. Do you normally work from home and have a job regardless, probably. So no crisis for you.
I think the crazy high death predictions to begin with were possibly influenced by the out-of-control situation, at that point, in Italy, and especially Bergamo: extrapolating from those, it was not unbelievable that we might be hit with savage fatality levels, as it clearly can happen so fast.
However, in practice, it seems to be apparent that for reasons specific to Ireland (lack of population density, relatively speaking; generally obedient or centrist population, quick shutting down of schools/colleges/civil service, and a better HSE capacity than we might have thought) has helped to stem it considerably.
Our smallness and general homogeneity of culture also marks us out quite radically from the UK. I think it’s easier to get Ireland to fall in line with government instructions (in fairness we’ve been lambasted for this before – remember anti-austerity marches in Greece with signs reading ‘we’re not Ireland’?)
This whole thing may also be a sobering sign that we should not go in the direction of congested high-rise housing in Dublin city to help the crisis. I can see why people advocate for it but the density levels in London are horrendous and look what’s happening there. We need a public transport system that can better serve and link and speed up travel from spread-out suburbs, as well as decentralisation, as it turns out our fetish for semi-ds and trampolines over urban apartments might be keeping the levels of this virus in check too.
This is a well reasoned and well thought out comment. Let’s be realistic though, it has no place here. Not a single dig at any of the Irish political parties, or any of the English ones, either.
Surely you could fit in a few trending twitter hash tags or some conspiracy theories du jour from far out podcasts? Maybe a link or two to The Daily Mail or The Sun? The National Enquirer even? Tie it in with Brexit somehow? Trump was not even mentioned.
Is it too much to ask?
Yep, this place has changed over the past few weeks.
Seemingly an influx of new users?
It wasn’t like this two months ago: it was a left-leaning news outlet which I enjoyed reading.
Now it seems like a kind of libertarian media outlet.
Which I don’t enjoy reading.
+++1
The FT had some interesting graphs that indicated that there was only an extremely weak correlation between density, and covid19 death rates.
Shut down date though, is much, much stronger.
Worst pandemic ever!
Is that guy part of FG ? Legit question
I know one thing- people are going to take predictive modelling with a pinch of salt from here on.
And the pandemic stats they are handed while hospital staff do well rehearsed dance routines on TikTok.
No one has the cut of this yet
Let’s pray the numbers are not about to go into the hundreds a day
I have a feeling the drastic isolating is beginning to work and at a massive cost
So if people do not continue to isolate them what is the point
And the great sacrifice is all in
Vain
“Those who predicted swamped ICUs, scandalous shortages of equipment and overflowing morgues in Ireland were utterly wrong.”
BECAUSE THE SOCIAL DISTANCING MEASURES ARE WORKING!!
Apologies for shouting, I just figure it’s the only way to get through to some people…