Just To Clarify

at

This afternoon.

Special Covid-19 Committee meeting.

Committee Chairman, Independent TD Michael McNamara questioned Dr John Cuddihy, Director, Health Protection Surveillance Centre, HSE, on how rona deaths are counted.

Michael McNamara: “Dr Cuddihy, if someone shows no symptoms of Covid and they have a heart attack and are brought to hospital and they are tested and it is found they have Covid and they die soon thereafter – but this is someone who has demonstrated no symptoms whatsoever – are they recorded as a Covid death or not? If they have tested positive for Covid but ultimately came to hospital because they had a heart attack or a stroke or fallen off the roof of a building or something like that?”

Dr John Cuddihy
: “We adhere to the World Health Organisation case definition in terms of recording and reporting deaths so in the situation you describe, where someone has a positive Covid test and it is a death in a confirmed Covid case but such a case would be subject to a coroner’s report aswell, and as part of the ongoing validation of data in our surveillance system, we wouldn’t…”

McNamara
: “Obviously a coroner’s report takes a very long time to work its way through the system. So, for now, they are recorded as a Covid death? And maybe they are taken off that list at a later date. is that what you are saying?

Dr Cuddihy: “That’s it exactly.”

Meanwhile…

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100 thoughts on “Just To Clarify

  1. John F

    We adhere to the World Health Organisation case definition in terms of recording and reporting deaths ……….
    Enough said.
    The narrative is slowly beginning to fall apart. People are rightly asking questions.
    Trump was right to defund them.

  2. Micko

    It’s not like any of us didn’t know that this is how they were calculating numbers.

    But, just to hear it confirmed (again) is still jawdropping

    Total madness

    1. SOQ

      Given the links between WHO and China- the theory that Chinese propaganda encouraged Western nations to lock down is gathering more credence by the day.

      1. benblack

        Hardly likely, in fairness.

        Perhaps time to drop that one.

        The response from Western governments was organised, planned and directed.

          1. f_lawless

            I agree with Ben. I don’t think it’s credible that Western nations were duped into lockdown by China and never changed policy once more information about the virus was known.

          2. E'Matty

            eh, this will be quite difficult for most to accept, but the same interests control both China and the West. We will though of course be subjected to a China v the West narrative, likely for at least the next decade or two. Watch out for the justification for much of the roll out of some real crazy authoritarian tech in the West based on the “We must remain competitve with China or else” narrative. China, by the way, is the model we are all to follow. A testing ground for digital authoritarianism matched with centralised control, if you will. China didn’t rise to its position ot economic might by accident you know? How could all those US businesses and banks that profitted so much from outsourcing to China have possibly seen this coming? How could a man like Kissinger have possibly seen such an eventuality manifesting? Ah, probably a ltitle too far down the rabbit hole with this one. I await the torrent of abuse. Though for anyone interested in such matters, check out the same set-up between the Soviet Union and West, as researched by Standford University’s Anthony C.Sutton. Let the abuse commence.

        1. benblack

          I do not mean to imply that I agree with the strategy Western governments employed, just that it was organised, planned and directed.

        2. SOQ

          There is quite a difference between a conspiracy theory and geopolitics- we have had the latter around fro as long as we have existed and nobody is questioning its existence.

          We also know that China has a large troll farm industry so a common sense question would be- who benefits from the crashing of western economies?

          1. benblack

            Ah, come on!

            Western governments were following specific Western ‘guidelines’ – hence the nursing home correlations.

        3. benblack

          Not from China is all I’m saying.

          Yes, in my opinion, it’s a conpiracy, but not of Chinese origin.

          An alternative is that this exhausted ‘free market’ economy is at its end. After years of austerity, it had/has become overheated again – why else would global economic stimulus packages – free money! – be introduced on a global scale. How could these packages be introduced without a global consensus. Thus, organised, planned and directed.

        4. E'Matty

          genuine question, how do you manage to get the mask on with your dunce hat all at the same time? Let me guess, your carer does it for you?

          1. benblack

            I stretch the elastic band part of the mask over the pointy bit of the hat and then pull down over nose and mouth – all ready for Hallowe’en.

      2. E'Matty

        to be fair, the two prime sponsors of the WHO are the US and Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation now the prime sponsor following Trump’s pulling of funding (actually just rerouting it through the Gates Foundation). Obviously everyone knows that Big Pharma giants are also big sponsors of the WHO, but another interesting one is Mr Bloomberg. But, just remember guys, these elite billionaires are just really really concerned about the health of the global poor…

  3. G

    This is hardly news. If a covid positive death arises it’s treated as a covid death until the coroners report and then it’s correctly reclassified with the correct cause of death.

    If a body is covid positive, irrespective of reason for death, it needs to be flagged to prevent any additional spreading should the virus still be present/contagious to the health workers/coroner/undertakers etc. dealing with it.

    These classifications take time for verification. It’s not some big massive conspiracy for fupp sake. The numbers have always been revised over time.

    1. Cian

      Exactly, there is a list of 90-odd notifiable diseases that this applies to (all of which are counted as “cases”, funnily enough)

      All medical practitioners, including clinical directors of diagnostic laboratories, are required to notify the Medical Officer of Health(MOH)/Director of Public Health (DPH) of certain diseases. This information is used to investigate cases thus preventing spread of infection and further cases.

      https://www.hpsc.ie/notifiablediseases/listofnotifiablediseases/

    2. Micko

      G, Cian

      Even when provided with the overwhelming evidence that this virus is not as serious as we once thought and that the figures are probably a complete mess up.

      You lads still stick to the idea that the sky is falling in.

      Time to take a look in the mirror lads and see if you’re big enough people to admit we all made a mistake. Or you could just keep on insisting that you’re correct – just for the sake of it.

      For what it’s worth, I don’t believe it’s a conspiracy either. Just a massive mistake and overreaction – and that’s ok.

      We’re only human lads.

      1. G

        – Even when provided with the overwhelming evidence that this virus is not as serious as we once thought and that the figures are probably a complete mess up.

        What evidence? The virus is still, untreated, as dangerous to humans as it was in March. It is more dangerous than the flu and we still know nothing about long term impacts on people.

        What doctors have learnt is how how it presents itself and how best to treat it. This combined with wearing masks / distancing / sanitisation by the public has greatly reduced the impact on the highest risk groups (and thus deaths)

        There’s a fair few people who have “recovered” from covid who months later are still unable to go about their daily lives. Yea plenty of 15-35 year olds are grand after a week or have no obvious symptoms but in 20 years time they could have the lungs or heart of an 80 year old. Avoiding contracting it as best as possible until a vaccine/safe treatment is most obvious move.

          1. G

            I don’t see how comparing a worse case scenario to our current outcome makes any sense.

            If anything you’re highlighting the great work of our medics treating it and the wider public in helping to contain the virus and the measuring put in place by the government at the time that it stayed so low.

            That worst case scenario would have been based on the country doing nothing and using what was a fairly high death rate at the time (which Italy, Spain and New York were all experiencing) to calculate out. I’m sure it was one of many calculations made by epidemiologists and the media ran with the shocking “worst case” one for headlines.

          2. Micko

            Well actually G, it was the prediction that our leader at the time chose to follow. But I digress.

            Anyway, just let me get this one straight. You think that us washing our hands, and avoiding each other saved about 83 THOUSAND people in Ireland from dying with this?

            f that was true, why didn’t we see massive death rates with essential workers? They couldn’t isolate and had to continue working in shops etc, with hundreds of people going in and interacting each day with them.

            Even regular people, queuing outside shops 2 mtrs apart to only then go inside and lean over each other in the frozen food section – with NO MASKS!

            It was never gonna happen mate – they got it wrong. And it’s ok. It’s time for us to take our medicine and admit we all got it wrong

          3. Cian

            Hey, here’s a fact for you – remember when the government predicted that 85K people could DIE?

            The government never predicted that. They were working on figures they had at the time, Italy was seeing thousands of death each day. What he said, and you actually linked to it was

            Mr Varadkar insisted that for the vast majority of people, who did get coronavirus, it would be very mild. He said many people might not even have any symptoms or know they had the virus at all.

            and

            “There will be a significant proportion who will require critical care. And a percentage that we don’t know, we honestly don’t know yet – it could be less than 1pc, it could be as much as 3pc – or 3.4pc – mortality. We don’t know yet,” the Taoiseach warned.

            “But when you’re talking about one, two, or three per cent, of half the population, those are very big figures,” Mr Varadkar added.

            The *newspaper* then took the absolute worst case scenario of half the population x 3.4% death.

          4. Micko

            @Cian

            So it was an overreaction. Grand – completely agree.

            So why are we still in the same poo? And why are you still shoveling it?

            When you now know and agree that it was an overreaction in March.

            Eh?

          5. Nigel

            If you lied about them saying 85k would die, and you did, and they never said it, but still felt that the risk justified the lockdown, it wasn’t an overreaction, it was a sensible precuation against a potential threat.

    3. benblack

      @Cian

      In fairness, those images coming from Italy, at the intial stages, got us all – even a doubting Thomas like me.
      However, it became clear early on that these were localised and not indicative events.

      It also became clear, early on, that this was being politicised beyond what should have been expected during a ‘REAL’ pandemic.

      1. E'Matty

        @Bebblack, exactly, why exaggerate the deaths if you’re dealing with a real pandemic. They’ve been caught cooking the books big time on this and selling the most hysterical and fearmongring interpretation of every stat coming out from the get-go. In a real pandemic, there would be no need for this. Clearly, the aim is to use this fearmongering to induce a state of mind in the public and we are seeing exactly what they then push through on the back of that.

  4. John Smith

    Chinese sellers on Ebay back in early April were saying in their ads: ‘You will have to wear masks when you come out of lockdown. Make sure you have your supplies ready’. At that time WHO and NPHET/Irish Government were saying, strongly: ‘Don’t wear masks’. The Chinese knew the direction things would go. It is hard to believe that there has been no pressure applied!

    1. Johnnythree

      @G

      In response to your post.

      ‘This is hardly news. If a covid positive death arises it’s treated as a covid death until the coroners report and then it’s correctly reclassified with the correct cause of death’ ——It is news though. Because why should the Covid Test as positive be the default? The PCR test is super sensitive so may be picking up old infection or be a false positive (currently 4 – 5%) How is a coroner supposed to classify or re-classify a death? Go do a post mortem? They are buried at that point. The position should be – ‘this person died of heart failure whilst also having a recorded positive test for Covid on X date’ . Just because they tested for it does not mean they died of it. This has implications for all of us bearing the brunt of poorly thought out measures introduced by the dopes in NPHET.

      ‘If a body is covid positive, irrespective of reason for death, it needs to be flagged to prevent any additional spreading should the virus still be present/contagious to the health workers/coroner/undertakers etc. dealing with it’ — Sure, they should assume if it has a positive test then it is Corona positive. Not sure how infectious it can be at that point.

      ‘These classifications take time for verification. It’s not some big massive conspiracy for fupp sake. The numbers have always been revised over time’

      But the numbers can’t be revised as above? How? They are mis-counting Covid deaths. It’s not a conspiracy just the usual Irish roundabout way of doping this illogically. Are you happy to trade personal freedom, economic and mental health of the country for poorly thought out policies based on assumptions? I’m not.

      1. Cian

        who is “They” ?

        The HSPC have always been 100% transparent about the numbers.
        That have always been clear that they are counting deaths *with* Covid not *from* Covid..
        They have clearly distinguished between Possible cases, Probable cases and Confirmed cases.
        They are constantly checking and correcting the numbers. e.g. yesterday they said:

        – the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has not been informed of any additional deaths among people with COVID-19 in Ireland
        – there have been 1,802 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland
        – 390 additional cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed
        – there have now been 35,377 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland
        validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 3 confirmed cases. The figure of 35,377 confirmed cases reflects this
        (my emphasis)

        https://www.gov.ie/en/news/7e0924-latest-updates-on-covid-19-coronavirus/

        1. GiggidyGoo

          The number of deaths though – not cases – has there been a denotification in the deaths figure. If not, then it’s saying that all were Covid-19 deaths, and none were heart attacks etc.That I’d find hard to believe.

          1. GiggidyGoo

            Has there been a denotification in the deaths figure?

            Contributory factors are just that – contributory. The main cause of death surely is what should be recorded.

          2. Cian

            @GiggidyGoo
            Has there been a denotification in the deaths figure?

            yes, see an example below, if you look through that link there are tens of similar examples. There are more in the July-August list..

          3. E'Matty

            @Cian – 95% of Covid “deaths” had a serious underlying condition and the order of prevalence was 1. Chronic heart disease, 2. Chronic Neurological disease (Parkinsons, Alzheimrs, MS), 3. Chronic Respiratory Disease, 4. Cancer/malignancy, 5. Diabetes. So these very elderly people had these ailments, the normal cause of death in the elderly in ireland, but no, it wasns’t that which killed them, we are to believe, tt was this mysterious Covid.

        2. Johnnythree

          The HSPC have always been 100% transparent about the numbers.

          *No. They cannot do any sort of breakdown of figures esp on testing or differences between test assays which are critical. I asked them. No answer. Because they don’t know or don’t want me to know. Fortunately I know someone on the inside so I know.

          That have always been clear that they are counting deaths *with* Covid not *from* Covid..
          They have clearly distinguished between Possible cases, Probable cases and Confirmed cases.

          *They didn’t. Hence the committee asking the question. Michael Mc is no dope. Where was Stephen Donnelly????? Instead we got Paul Reid flushed in the face and sinking under his desk.

          They are constantly checking and correcting the numbers. e.g. yesterday they said:

          – the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has not been informed of any additional deaths among people with COVID-19 in Ireland

          * Up to recently they were reporting deaths from months ago as if they occurred the previous day.

          – there have been 1,802 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland
          * Unlikely given we use the ‘had covid’ as opposed to ‘died of covid’

          – 390 additional cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed

          *390 Positive tests for covid with a probable false positive of 3 – 5%

          – there have now been 35,377 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland
          * Nope. Can’t have been. See above.

          – validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 3 confirmed cases. The figure of 35,377 confirmed cases reflects this

          * Figures are not believable. They are testing more to find more despite tiny increases for the number of tests.

          1. Cian

            You are wrong.

            There are daily updates with numbers. These are all published on the web. It is all transparent. They have definitions of all the terms they use.

            Here is one example (randomly selected)

            27 June
            The latest news as of 5.30pm on Saturday 27 June

            6 deaths and 23 cases confirmed:
            – the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has been notified that 6 people diagnosed with COVID-19 in Ireland have died – bringing the total deaths to 1,734
            validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 2 deaths. The figure of 1,734 deaths reflects this
            – 23 additional cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed
            – there have now been 25,437 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland

            (my emphasis)

            https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/72d92-updates-on-covid-19-coronavirus-from-april-june-2020/

  5. GiggidyGoo

    As far as I know, Doctors must certify deaths, and only unless if they’re not satisfied as to the cause of death or didn’t examine the deceased at least 28 days before the death occurred is the Coroner advised.

    1. Cian

      if we look at the three examples given above: ” If they have tested positive for Covid but ultimately came to hospital because they had a heart attack or a stroke or fallen off the roof of a building or something like that?”

      – if a person fell off a roof [Covid is very unlikely to have caused the death] the coroner would most likely be involved and this would be excluded from the Covid numbers.
      – in the other two examples, heart attack or a stroke, there is a reasonable possibility that Covid was partially responsible for the death. The probably wouldn’t be a coroner, and they would remain in the numbers.

        1. Cian

          7. Mortality Surveillance
          Influenza-associated deaths include all deaths where influenza is reported as the primary/main cause of death by the physician or if influenza is listed anywhere on the death certificate as the cause of death.

          https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hpsc.ie%2Fa-z%2Frespiratory%2Finfluenza%2Fseasonalinfluenza%2Fsurveillance%2Finfluenzasurveillancereports%2F20192020season%2FInfluenza_Surveillance_Report_Week%252014_%25202020%2520v1.0.pdf

      1. Cian

        There is a big list of reasons (some of the Covid relevant ones):
        Deaths which must be Reported to the Coroner
        […]
        – Sudden, unexpected or unexplained deaths.
        – Where the appropriate registered medical practitioner cannot sign a medical certificate of the cause of death (i.e. a deceased person was not seen and treated within one month before death, or the cause of death is unknown or death may be due to an unnatural cause).
        – Even where the deceased had been attended by a registered medical practitioner for a documented illness, if the doctor is not satisfied in relation to the cause of death or death has occurred suddenly or unexpectedly, it must be reported.
        – Where a death was directly or indirectly due to unnatural causes (regardless of the length of time between injury and death), including;
        […]
        – Sudden, unexpected or unexplained deaths.
        – Where the appropriate registered medical practitioner cannot sign a medical certificate of the cause of death (i.e. a deceased person was not seen and treated within one month before death, or the cause of death is unknown or death may be due to an unnatural cause).
        […]
        – Where a person is brought in dead (BID, DOA, dead on arrival) to the Accident and Emergency department of a hospital.
        […]
        – Where a death was directly or indirectly due to unnatural causes
        – Deaths occurring in an Accident and Emergency department.
        – Where death occurs within 24 hours of admission to hospital.
        – Where death occurs within 24 hours of the administration of an anaesthetic, surgical procedure or any procedure.
        – Certain deaths which occur in a department of a hospital, e.g. radiology department, out-patients, physiotherapy, E.C.G., E.E.G., etc.
        – Where a patient dies in hospital, having been recently transferred or discharged from a nursing home or other residential institution (including mental hospital or prison).
        – Where there is any doubt as to the cause of death.
        – A death in any public or private institution for the care of elderly or infirm persons.
        – Any death involving a healthcare associated infection.

        these are reported to the coroner… i don’t know if this means that the coroner will actually look into it
        http://www.coroners.ie/en/cor/pages/deaths%20which%20must%20be%20reported%20to%20the%20coroner

        1. GiggidyGoo

          The guy in the video answering McNamara said, as regards cases of the likes of heart attacks but with covid being present, they would be recorded as a ‘death in a confirmed covid case’ and such a case would be subject to a coroners report.

      2. SOQ

        So the the Irish CORONERS office is responsible for issuing all CoVid-19 death certificates- not just from but with?

        1. Cian

          I don’t know. That link says they must be informed.

          But it is possible that a GP in a old-folks home who was active in the person’s case can make her own informed decision on the likely cause(s) of death (this might be either of “health person got Covid, deteriorated and died [e.g. of Covid]” or “very frail person was dying and happened to test positive for Covid [e.g.[with Covid]”). They inform the Coroners office – and the coroner may accept their cause of death – and the Dr issues the death cert (and also mandatory informs HPSC).

          1. Cian

            II think you may be wrong.

            What happens when a death is reported?

            When a death has been reported to the Coroner, they or their staff will contact the doctor of the deceased and establish if:-

            – The doctor has seen the deceased within the last month;
            – The cause of death is known;
            – The death was due to natural causes?

            If these conditions are met, and there are no other matters needing investigation, the Coroner will allow the doctor to complete a Medical Certificate of the Cause of Death and the death will be registered with the Registrar of Deaths. No unnatural causes of death can be certified by a doctor.

            Based on the information available, the Coroner will decide:-

            – A death can be certified without any further action;
            – A post mortem is needed to gather further information;
            – A post mortem and inquest are needed.

            So my guess above looks like it is true and the doctor can issue a cert. I don’t think postmortems were carried out on the majority of the covid deaths.

            http://www.coroners.ie/en/cor/pages/reporting%20of%20a%20sudden%20death

          2. SOQ

            I said responsible, not who actually wrote it.

            I am assuming that there has to be someone or something monitoring the issuing of those certs because otherwise, a doctor can put down whatever they feel like.

            The reason why this is important is because if deaths are being wrongly attributed to CoVid-19 then that body should be held to account.

  6. Micko

    Everyone’s looking at the first part of that video and focussing in that. The deaths.

    The deaths are 1800 odd over 6-7 months – not huge numbers thankfully.

    It’s the second part of the vid – the cases that are a problem now. People being admitted to hospital and tested in work completely asymptomatic and finding out the have or had a Covid infection.

    That’s what’s driving the restrictions now!

    Forget about the death tole, we need to know what number of the new cases are asymptomatic.

          1. Johnny Green

            -jump into it with you on a quieter tread-love discuss to as i have some care numbers from UK-trying figure them out- for piece on the 3 irish guys who won 12,000 care beds in UK.
            -but just finishing something at moment Cian-between 8-12% above normal with some lags in data sets but 10% would be easily defendable.

            “the number of weekly deaths in 2020 differs (as a percentage) from the average number of deaths in the same week over the previous five years (2015–2019). This metric is called the P-score. Note that deaths in recent weeks might be
            undercounted due to reporting lags.”

            most people can follow pictures and this illustrates the data quite well.

            https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

            source is University of Oxford.

      1. Micko

        But why are they in hospital Cian?

        Is it Covid or something else that has them hospitalised.

        Too little info on the demographics given to us by the government.

        1. Johnnythree

          @Micko
          Exactly. Jesus. Tiny amounts of hospitalisations and we have our lives and our kids lives curtailed because of what? Hospitalisations of mostly elderly?

          1. Micko

            For sure JT

            I really wish we knew the ages of those being hospitalised and admitted to ICU, so we could assess it properly.

            We may be wrong – it could be tons of young people going into ICU. If it is – I’ll change my mind.

          2. Oro

            Am I missing something or are the elderly not still living and breathing people? Would you have them culled so you can go to the pub?

          3. GiggidyGoo

            Oro.
            The elderly were being culled at the start of this thanks to decisions taken by the HSE and Simon Harris.

          4. Micko

            Yes Oro,

            That’s precisely what I’m saying*

            Soylent Grey anyone?

            *In case your ability to read sarcasm is as broken as your ability to understand a complex nuanced opinion – that was sarcasm.

      2. Johnnythree

        @Cian
        And? You are deluded in your belief that the data is accurate. It is not. The test is inaccurate as are cases/ test results and deaths. They are slowly unravelling the ball of confusion spun by the Govt and aided and abetted by NPHET.
        17 in ICU and we close down the country. What next? What would you do next Cian?

        1. Cian

          I dunno.

          Another way of looking at it is this:
          in spite of the country being locked down there are 17 in ICU. How high would this be if we weren’t locked down?

          1. Johnnythree

            @cian But lockdowns don’t work. They just put the epidemic forward…but you know that. I hope. Or are you being pedantic?

          2. Cian

            lockdowns slow things down.
            – They give time to learn better ways to treat diseases.
            – They give breathing room to the services so they aren’t swamped.
            – They negatively affect the economy
            – They negatively affect all other health services

            The problem is that it is impossible to accurately quantify any of these, and you’ll never know for sure because anything you do affects the outcome. It ends up a “worst of all evils” decision.

            Did the government make the right decisions in March? I think mostly yes (based on the onfo they had).
            Is the government making the right decisions now? I don’t think so – I think Covid is still a big threat, and we need to manage it, but I think they are being too heavy handed.

    1. SOQ

      Henry doesn’t know how many cycles the Irish system uses?

      Given that it may mean the difference between a false positive or not- does he not think this is important information to hold?

      1. SOQ

        Henry doesn’t know how many cycles the Irish system uses?

        Given that it may mean the difference between a false positive or not- does he not think that would have been an important question to ask?

  7. Johnnythree

    @Micko
    We do know a good bit.

    For example.In 2017, there were 6,186 ICU admissions in Ireland.

    There have been 467 COVID ICU admissions so far this year to last week.

    Data since the start of the outbreak shows just 25 ICU admissions for under 35s.
    So thats roughly 11,000 ‘cases’ as Cian likes to call them. (positive tests for the rest of us) and of that 25 admissions out of over 11,000 cases so just 0.2% of cases enter ICU for under 35 year old cohort (0 – 35 years of age)

    1000 cases of Covid in ICU would still be only a 7th of the total capacity in a normal year. Does anyone think we are going to reach 1000 people in ICU this year because of covid? Given that most of the older people who were going to die from it did, most others are protected, most of the under 35’s that get it don’t get hospitalised….?
    Yet we still stay closed down. For what? Cases from a PCR test that is trigger happy and NPHET who like to panic overseen by Stephen who won’t go answer questions or be accountable?

    Yeah, sounds all logical to me. Not.

    1. Micko

      It all doesn’t make any sense.

      The more I think about it, I feel that the government are now paralysed. They know they oeverreacted.

      They can’t admit the were wrong and now just perpetuating this thing to it’s extremes to prove that it was all worth it.

      When we come out of this mess (I’m betting April 2021) the narrative will be something along the lines of
      “didn’t Irish citizens and government all do a great job and sure the Irish people are the best in the world at pulling together – and sure look at the UK, aren’t they a mess, and Sweden – what a bunch of heartless blond fish eating ba$tr*ds!.

      Yay Ireland!! Sure aren’t we the best little island in the world”. ;-)

          1. Micko

            Funily enough, I have had two seperate business heads / leader types say to me “knowingly” that it’ll be April. In a nudge nudge wink wink type fashion.

            Both would have connections with the HSE, HIQA and events in Ireland. So the wold be in the know.

            I didn’t think mutch of it at the times .

            And then he Mehole came out the other day and said that it’ll be “6 months more of restrictions Ireland”, I was thinking that it lined up perfectly.

            Anyway, it’s all hearsay and both those lads could’ve been talking our their bums.

            Fingers crosses though

      1. GiggidyGoo

        April 2021? Brexit will have been finished (hopefully) by then. Michilín needs a go-to catchphrase, so you can bet that you’re looking at Summer 2021 minimum. And at that, not 100%

      2. Nigel

        The Lockdown (care homes aspect excepted) was entirely justified on the grounds of public health concerns given a brand new highly contagious and verifiably deadly virus was sweeping the globe. Whether in the long run after statistical analysis it could be said that maybe we could have gotten away with no locdown, it will not change the fact that in the case of an impending emergency we took emergency measures. it’d be a bit like saying we were mistaken for evacuating the entire building because the fire stayed confined to one kitchen. The FG government can stand by what they did – NOT the care homes, obviously.

        We are currently in a state of bracing urselves for a second wave that we’re not a hindred ercent sure is going to come, but which we know is entirely possible. The government is not handling it as well, because it’s a lot more complex, and people here are clearly not handling it very well either.

        If I had one safe prediction to make for the future, it’s that the world is going to get more uncertain, and disruption more sporadic and difficult to quantify and responses more radical and difficult to fit in with our current economic model. Get used to it.

        1. Micko

          Nigel, just out of curiosity – is your profession affected by Covid?

          I find that the country is broken in two. People who are knackered and people who are sitting pretty at home getting the same or similar money

          1. SOQ

            +1 Mick

            Some people’s lives have been substantially improved by Lockdowns, especially working from home as they don’t have the commute times or costs.

            And then there are those who have lost their jobs with the wolf at the door. These were the poorer to begin with and are being hung out to dry- especially by the Left. Feeding the kids from the back end of the cupboard has a habit of focusing minds and will leave you even more cynical than ever- if that was possible.

            And then you have these morons who claim to be Left trying to paint everyone who protests as ‘right wing’- except the current situation has only a marginal impact on them- so they can afford to preach.

          2. Micko

            Ah ok Nigel.

            Well since your profession and employment are effected, I’m going to assume that you’re in receipt of the PuP payment or the government top up scheme. As a lot of us are.

            Will you expect the government to continue with the payment schemes until this thing is over (a long time in your estimation) and just as you put it “get used to it” while continue to get a hand out from the state or or will you seek work in another industry or profession?

          3. Formerly known as @ireland.com

            @SOQ — The left are not in power. Stop blaming the left. If the wolf is at the dor, it is the right wing.

    2. Cian

      You would need to know the average duration of ICU admission – for both Covid and non-Covid.

      If non-covid is, say, 2 days, and covid is, say, 4 days then Covid is using 28% of ICU capacity. Which is a big chunk.

      Ideally we would need the total ICU-bed days for 2019 and the total Covid-ICU-bed days to get a good understanding.

    3. Nigel

      ‘Given that most of the older people who were going to die from it did,’

      Uh, they did?

      ‘most others are protected,’

      Uh, they are?

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