The Acute Phase

at

Happening now.

The Special Committee on Covid-19 Response  )is currently in session and will sit in the Dáil over three sessions.

Witnesses to go before the committee include Secretary General at the Department of Health Jim Breslin (top), Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan (pic 2), CEO of the HSE Paul Reid, Chief Operations Officer at the HSE Anne O’Connor, Chief Clinical Officer at the HSE Dr Colm Henry.

The Irish Times reports this morning that Mr Breslin will tell the committee, in his opening address:

“We need to be aware that we will continue to be in the acute emergency phase of this crisis for some time, with further waves an ever-present danger. This is not a one-, two- or even a three-day storm, after which we move to the recovery phase. The acute phase of this crisis will definitely be measured in months and most probably in years, rather than days.”

The Irish Times also reports that the Senior Civil Service Association wrote letters yesterday warning that is members must be protected from “aggressive or bullying behaviour, contrary to fair procedure and nature justice” when they go before the committee.

CEO of the HSA Dr Sharon McGuinness, General Secretary of ICTU Patricia King and Director General of the CIF Tom Parlon will also go before the committee.

The committee’s proceedings can be watched live here or in the link above.

Coronavirus: Crisis set to last years, warns top health official (The Irish Times)

Related: Senior officials fear ‘bullying’ from Dáil Covid-19 committee (Pat Leahy, The Irish Times)

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13 thoughts on “The Acute Phase

  1. frank

    I dislike the content on Newstalk and no one more than Dr. Ciara Kelly but she was speaking a whole lot of sense on Claire Byrne last night.

    The damage to society the economy, our whole way of life is far too great for a risk that is not as they (the experts) anticipated. The ‘tSunami’ of deaths has not happened. The 15,000 dead has not happened.
    Send the kids back to school. Relax these crazy social distancing rules. Restore confidence and stop the fear mongering.

    I’ve had Covid19 my partner and 3 children have had Covid19. I’ve met 3 other people who have had Covid19. Average healthy people get over it in a couple of days or don’t even know if they’ve had it!
    The elderly and those with health issues need to be ‘cocooned’ or ‘isolated’ etc. not the general public.

    As for this nonsense of a vaccine!! why does anyone believe there can be a vaccine found for Covid19 when there is no vaccine for SARS COV1 which broke out almost 20 years ago.

    Furthermore if this is it. This is the way we must now live. Then please experts, members of the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response, WHO etc. tell us how do we live in that future?

    At the very least the KIDS HAVE TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    1. Johnnythree

      I agree fully. Take a look at Michael Levitts work on this. The curve, how it progresses, the need for calm rational analysis. I get that perfection is the enemy sometimes but overall we have massively destroyed our economy? For what?

    2. Rugbyfan

      Agree. The medical people have no worries in terms of job security, pension sorted etc. How the hell is the HSE in charge, when it is a serious clusterfcuk of an organisation in the first place.Open up the economy!

  2. GiggidyGoo

    RBB brought up the question of testing (approx 12:35 hrs), and Holohan replied that ‘hot off the press’ there’s ‘new advice’ that ‘will be’ looked at closely. In other words – ‘I’m not going to answer your question properly and will hide behind the nearest something I can find to avoid doing so’

  3. V'ness

    Tripe and more time wasting
    We get it
    Ye did med

    If they were all cut back to the Covid-19 € 350 a week
    Acting Government included

    we’d have been back
    out and about
    dancing, shifting, working, and whatever yer having yerselves
    a month ago

    One way or another, we have to live with this Virus for the rest of our lives
    The same way we’ve learned to live around the HIV Virus, and all the other nasties we pick up from each other

    Jaysus I’m sick of the whole bloody lot’ve them
    and all the Plandemic Fake Virus Groupies as well, so don’t go there

    I’m easily down 20K, and no Championship
    So thread carefully lads

  4. Johnnythree

    In other words they will miss the target again for testing. But it does not matter anyway because:
    1. 40% of people are asymptomatic
    2. They have no track and trace facility ( look at the UK debacle on this, they have abandoned it after hiring 20,000 regional test centre staff)
    3. They don’t want anything that will affect the deadly narrative of corona: we had to close down etc….political suicide once the dust settles and we realise much of the lockdown was a completely futile exercise.

    1. SOQ

      1. 40% * 2 at least.
      2. What is the point if my 1 is correct.
      3.Agreed- the next ‘phase’ is about face saving- I wonder will they try and throw the advisers under a bus like in Britain? Its hard to believe such high profile modelling academics were employed in the UK and it was only back of an envelope calculations here.

      1. Johnnythree

        Agreed. UK though, God when you look at Neil Fergusons Track record in modelling he makes us look like experts. Take a read -https://chrisvoncsefalvay.com/2020/05/09/imperial-covid-model/

        QUOTE’ @neil_ferguson
        I’m conscious that lots of people would like to see and run the pandemic simulation code we are using to model control measures against COVID-19. To explain the background – I wrote the code (thousands of lines of undocumented C) 13+ years ago to model flu pandemics…’

        1. SOQ

          From that opinion piece- Politicians have not been taught enough about data-driven decision-making, especially not where predictive data is involved.

          Never a truer word typed. But it will go much further than just epidemiology, the environmental sciences are going to come under increased calls for transparency and accountability now- especially around climate change modelling.

          They really need a peer review system but the politics of academia is like everywhere else where funding is concerned- just bigger words used.

  5. Johnnythree

    I think so. You cannot make mad, far reaching decisions without looking at a few models and getting expert groups of scientists together. Sweden has not one politician on its Corona Task Force. That means decisions and the subsequent consequences are informed by scientific questioning not political.

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