Professor Pete Lunn, founder and head of the ESRI’s Behavioural Research Unit
This morning
Covid fatigue?
Nonsense.
Via The Irish Times:
Prof Pete Lunn, head of behavioural research at think tank ESRI, said that public polling over recent months suggested the public debate was “miles off” the opinion of the majority of the population who want the Government to be more cautious in fighting coronavirus.
…Surveys and evidence gathered on public attitudes towards restrictions are not showing fatigue with the restrictions but “a degree of resilience” and compliance has been “edging up” consistently over recent months, he said.
“That suggests that there is a majority appetite that says, ‘we can cope with this’ and in fact, on balance, the public wants more restriction rather than fewer,” said Prof Lunn, who is a member of a subgroup that has advised NPHET on the public response to the pandemic.
Most people want more, not fewer, restrictions, survey shows – ESRI expert (Irish Times)
Earlier: A Limerick A Day
Previously: Rona Shaming
Government caving in to populism.
I think if you were to drill down that people would prefer to see an enforcement of existing restrictions over a full lockdown. But that’s not a nice place to be in either.
The only people with COVID fatigue are the selfish ones who just want to get back to “normal” and go to the pub and gaa matches.
The sooner everyone cops on and realises that everyone is in this and unless we all sacrifice the things we like for a few months it’s not going away the better. Yes people
Mental Heath will suffer, mine is, but it’s something we have to get used to.
Most bars have been open in most countries in Europe since the beginning of the summer.
Does Covid-19 behave differently in an Irish bar ?
Does it don a ginger wig and big buckled shoes and do a little leprechaun dance before it infects someone.
Unlike its straight-laced Germanic cousin which, unusually, decides not to invade victims who are practising social distancing and sensible precautions.
Or the English version, which leaps up and down in large groups screaming “Engurland, Engurland-Wayo-wayo-way-o” ad nauseum, then starts a fight over some chips?
The virus doesn’t act differently no, but I think it’s been proved that the Irish public can’t be trusted to follow guidelines when they are relaxed.
If you can’t handle a few months without drinking and or sports then you’ve a problem
to the aptly named “BS” – it’s been over 6 months. And it’s not drinking or sports, it’s everything. It’s queuing, it’s masks on masks off, it’s standing outside doctor surgeries and vets in the rain, it’s job insecurity, it’s isolation from friends and family, it’s lack of social interaction generally, the inability to read people’s faces or lips, it’s restrictions on movement within your own country, it’s endless, endless hours of Claire Byrne, it’s tedious, tiresome, miserable, meaningless daily drudge. I’m sick of it and I don’t believe anyone – especially this Lunn guy – who thinks that we want more of it.
+1 on the Claire Byrne misery porn
She’s an absolute dose
Isn’t she supposed to be the nation’s sweetheart or something?
Problem for extroverts, bless ’em, the old normal was the extroverts torturing the Introverts. This is the new paradise for the majority
When exactly has it been “proved” that we can’t follow guidelines??
“unusually, decides not to invade victims who are practising social distancing and sensible precautions.”
Setting aside the Dad’s Army jokes about Ze Germans for a minute, it’s the lack of that social distancing and sensible precautions being practiced that has resulted in pubs, bars and restaurants in Ireland being closed. It’s heavy handed and it’s collective punishment but, unfortunately, that’s what happens when people put pints and profits ahead of everything else. Plenty of pubs are doing a fine job of enforcing the social distancing etc but plenty more were not so the options were an army of Covid inspectors going from premises to premises with powers to shut down individual businesses or a blanket shut down.
Our local cafe did a fantastic job of reopening after lockdown with measures in place, and once everyone got used to them it’s been ticking along nicely. Be awful to see them punished because others didn’t bother.
When you change your name, again, B9Wong Alexander, you need to alter your style of writing, in this case, puerile troll sans serif.
He has a thing about Greece. Alexandria / Thessalonika. A kind of Big Fat Greek Wedding thing going on with Charger.
Writing styles are almost like fingerprints – easily matched.
I disagree Tessy.
Every pub I have been too before and after the wet pubs re-opened was sticking as rigidly as it could to the guidelines.
Most drinking behaviour in Northern Europe is pretty similar based mainly around the weather and tradition.
The further south you get drinking patterns are different.
My point is if all those millions of bars and pubs have been open across Europe all summer why has the infection rate been going down for most of that time ?
To keep wet pubs closed longer than anyone else then effectively close them down a fortnight after they’ve re-opened seems to me to be evidence that the politicians taking the decisions don’t really have much of a clue.
1. everyone is not in this…money buys yachts.
2. 23 year olds will not accept a wagging finger from 65 year olds indefinitely.
if people want more caution around the virus, they are free to exercise it themselves. i dont believe anything i read in the newspapers. if the 18-25 age cohort are more cautious why are they socialising in groups.
I wish Broadsheet would stop referring to Irish Times articles. there was some other nonsence article a week ago about gardai giving details of parties to college authorities. total nonsense. i hate to use the Donald trump phrase ‘fake news’, but that’s what it is.
“i dont believe anything i read in the newspapers”
Then why read them? As it happens, I find the sports results are usually more or less accurate.
that was a typo- i meant i dont believe everything i read in the newspapers. i thought that common phrase would be common enough so that someone reading; anything would think i meant ‘everything;
Ah right. With the rise of the anti-MSM fake news crowd it’s not unusual for people to say “don’t believe anything” and mean it.
“I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human, than someone who doesn’t believe anything.”
David St. Hubbins
Never gets old
“David and Nigel are like poets, you know, like Shelley or Byron, or people like that. The two totally distinct types of visionaries, it’s like fire and ice, and I feel my role in the band is to be kind of the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water.”
derek smalls
more relevant now than ever before..
The public have not been asked. And The Journal polls don’t count in the slightest. Keep squeezing the people at the bottom and see what happens.
+1
And it is not just at the bottom. I got news a friend has just died- cancer- her treatment was delayed by over four months. No one knows if she would have survived if treated earlier but she deserved a friggen chance.
so it’s the government’s fault your friend didn’t have health insurance?
Ah ffs
That single comment proves you are the exact opposite of the gentle creative kind soul we have just lost.
Sorry for your loss SOQ.
I don’t think it’s too much to ask that people remain civil to each other here. No matter what angle or side people are coming at this, it is clear that so many are under strain. By all means debate but don’t be adding to it with insensitive stuff like this. Just be decent. Please.
Horrible comment. No one should be forced to have private health insurance. Is it too much to expect our taxes to fund a decent health service?
No, it’s the governments fault that the health service was shutdown for months and is only just barely limping along now.
SOQ sorry for your loss.
B9Wong Alexander at it again.
Sorry to hear that SOQ
Condolences
Very sorry, SOQ.
Out of touch idiot.
all the “ah me freedom, ah de constition” flutes are guna keep this going longer and stronger. WHen it first arrived i genuinely thought we’d be in a proper lockdown until Christmas. I was prepared to bunk down months. Only 2 months in and people were whingin about not going to gaa matches and the pub. so many weak, selfish little babies amongst us. willing to let people die so they can have little things.
Good for you
However there are hundreds of thousands of us not in a position to bunk down
Everyone making the decisions that impact our lives to the extent that they will be changed forever
like extended mortgages, loss of livelihoods, possible insolvency, mental health, and what will be left of our health services + whatever yere having yerselves
Have suffered zero impact – since day one
Other than wearing masks, missing a few gigs, cancelled conferences, sorting out home offices, washing their hands etc like everyone else
Beyond those alterations to the to and fro of their home and work environments, they are completely out of touch with the day-to-day of the everyday person in the private sector
at all levels, and from all income brackets
I used to think the next great Civil Unrest/ Financial Divide would be amongst retirees – those with benchmarked backed pensions, early retirees, and those on the flat SW and into their late 60s, early 70s from 2030 on
Wrong, well not entirely, as that will still happen
But it is now also going to be about who were with full pay and the business as usual, month in month out, regardless of work location and conditions
and those of us Without, and in careers, jobs, livelihoods that are either lost forever or looking out on a barren desolate marketplace. Performers, Licenced Trade, Restaurants, Airlines, Banking, Retail, Tourism
For a such a small population, the inequality and inequity of decisions now being made out of our sight, particularly regarding income – is so stark and obvious it beggars belief that even the likes of you don’t see it
Please Please lads
Prove me wrong
the gov. have been very lazy about how to do it. blanket restricitons on the whole country are such a lazy option. a pub in a parish of 20 people in the back end of leitrim doenst carry the same risks as a pub on fade street in dublin. closing both is lazy. thats just an example, but they should’ve laid out meticulate plans, making them fair as possible. they also couldve said “look, the guidelines in place for a pandemic are almost 100 years old, they aren’t keeping with a modern ireland” and then went about changing them to fit and keep people safe. all this laziness is a feature of FF and FG, so its not surprising, but they couldnt even pull a finger out with something as huge and detrimental as this. well, FF already showed with the last recession how little they care about the fate of the irish people. what i really dont get, is this is such a big moment in history, and if you;re in government, would you not have some kind of drive for at least going down in the history books as someone who helped their country out as best they can? rather than just hide and hope to be at the trough for long enough to feather a nice nest? remarkable lack of ambition, which shows that outside of virus stuff, they cant be trusted to do a good job on anything.
Leo Varadkar ran like a greyhound into the Aras to get a way from it by calling an election
Without even telling his party rank and file & HQ Staff, or even many of the Constituency Branches
The Acting Government and the newly formed Government are just going along with WHO, Pharma, and covering up the disaster that has been the HSE
everything they’ve done has been to try and not expose the weaknesses in the HSE
and keeping their fingers crossed their cheques to big business interests don’t bounce
The very nature of their early first responses to this global pandemic
Hire a PR Guru and pay Private Hospitals upfronts
Roll out publicity shots of testing centres and temporary care facilities like City West
Their inability from one Government to an other to manage or make independent decisions is all there in how they managed the leaving cert
from mid March to now
FUBAR
Their One and only time of pushing back was telling NPHET to cop on to themselves
Covid was only announced on December 30 and the first (Chinese) Covid death was 9th January, and it wasn’t seen outside China until after the election was called on 14th January.
So I really, really, really doubt that Covid was a reason that the Irish GE election was called.
You should just continue with your “bunk down months” if you’re so frightened. You seem to think we can get rid of the virus with a lockdown. Can you tell me where this has been achieved? “weak, selfish little babies amongst us.” he says as he promotes the destruction of the irish economy and looks to condemn hundreds of thousands to poverty, deprivation, mental health suffering, isolation, loneliness, delayed diagnosis of chronic and deadly illnesses etc. But, you’re ok, hiding in your little bunker like a coward. Man up and get on with life
as i said earlier, matty. the gov. have been very lazy about how to do this. blanket restricitons on the whole country are such a lazy option. a pub in a parish of 20 people in the back end of leitrim doesnt carry the same risks as a pub on fade street in dublin. closing both is lazy. thats just an example, but they should’ve laid out meticulate plans, making them fair as possible. they also couldve said “look, the guidelines in place for a pandemic are almost 100 years old, they aren’t keeping with a modern ireland” and then went about changing them to fit and keep people safe.
so there are ways to do lockdowns well. but to abandon public health measures altogether and saying you literally dont care if people die once you dont lose a few months business is very selfish. look at NEw Zealand, a reat example of how lockdowns do work if done right. and their economy is operating very well. the choice is not health or economy. you can have both. but the narrative in ireland has been to create two sides and turn them on each other, you;re either for business or health. its creating division in the country, which is also how gov. operate, to take the heat off themselves, turn people on each other, theyve always worked like that. plebs like you are only too happy to go along with it.
“but to abandon public health measures altogether and saying you literally dont care if people die once you dont lose a few months business is very selfish.” oh right. Can you detaiul where I have said that please? It has been people like myself who have been calling for an investigation into how the government mishandled the nursing and care homes. It is people like me who are saying we should protect the elderly and vulnerable BUT get everyone esle back to work and normal asap.
New Zealand is an island in the vast Pacific which was able to close its borders completely. We can’t. There is no zero virus strategy that is practical and applicable. Lockdowns are destroying the country. You seem to think businesses going under only afftects profits, which is a pretty child-like understanding of how economies work and relate to public health. You are myopic in your obsession with a virus which we now know is only marginally more deadly than the annual flu. This hysteria driven response which acts like we are faced with the most dangerous virus in human history is just plain mindless insanity.
Yes, there is a division in the country. It is between the gullible and unthinking sheep who swallow whole whatever vocies of authority feed them, and then those who actually think for themselves and challenge the consensus with facts and evidence, instead of narrative and hysteria. You want everyone to unite in the destruction of our society. I want everyone to unite in the rejuvenation of our society and perhaps even the start of a more conscious and aware citizenry who question voices of authority as a matter of course.
No we don’t want more restrictions, we just want those minority of self-centered people to abide by the restrictions already in place. No use 90% of people complying so the other “we don’t need no regulations” types to do as they please. The longer this goes on, the more non-compliance as the “if they can do it, why can’t we” mentality sets in.
Hey
Just wanted to throw a ha’penny in
There has been a certain fatigue but that does not mean people want to stop complying
I’ve a friend who is about to lose his job and can’t pay rent, I’m prob going to give him my spare room for a nominal fee
My parents and brother are job hunting
I’ve to pay my rent myself at the moment as I can’t get anyone to rent the spare room
I’ve friends in hospital who can’t get visitors
People who lost two loved ones who couldn’t be consoled
We are affected economically and emotionally. We just want to be able to work and protect the vulnerable, that’s it
And don’t get me started on how crushing the lonliness is. . I can socially distance 95% of the time, wear a mask always
There is just a lot of us who will get on…and I’d ask everyone to remember that middle ground
And I’m in a good place,I’ve lots who are not.. xx
Indeed.
If you’re a student being subsidised by the Bank of Mam and Dad or have an employer who allows you to work from home then lockdown and no pub isn’t a problem.
If you’re jobless,single,elderly,lonely,sick or sometimes all of these then no social contact and incessant doom from politicians is soul-destroying.
There has to be a balance struck to avoid long-term social,mental and economic problems.Endless lockdowns and increasing regulation is unviable at this stage.
Somebody human has hacked Charger!!!
there’s a thirty minute window when drinking gin where you get warm and empathetic. it’s shortly followed a raging horn or a deep black depression.
currently taking bets on what the afternoon holds for mr salmons.
Crushing loneliness and 12 more cans?
Your wan and her crutch, along with the faux patriots and their loyalist friends, want restrictions to continue, otherwise they have little to march for. It would be difficult to generate a crowd over 5G or chemtrails.
“want restrictions to continue, ” how do you figure that? Isn’t their demand literally an end to the restrictions? It’s only people like you who are prolonging these unnecessary restrictions. There sis no need for them at all. Protect the vulnerable, and let everyone else get back to living.
I think you are missing the point. The restrictions have been a godsend to them; they were never able to muster such numbers to their myriad of previous protests.
Jesus
People asking for more compliance and restrictions
It’s not the plague FFS
And the WHO announcing the other day that they think 750 million are now infected puts the fatality rate to about 0.1%. Far from the 4-5% we thought at the start.
To paraphrase Dr Martin Feeley from the other night. The plan was never to shield everyone from this, the plan is to let everyone come into contact with it in a controlled fashion.
You are getting it. Deal with it.
I think a major part of the bog-standard demoralisation that’s going on is that you’ve got Johnny Commonsense following the advice, taking the correct measures, and then he sees all these stories about massive house parties and GAA celebrations and people generally taking the urine and – nothing, nobody does anything about it, the people in power whinge about it for a couple of days to get their name in the paper but ultimately they don’t seem to give a fupp. Which makes Johnny feel like a bit of a fool for cleaving so closely to the letter of the advice, and so less likely to do so in future. Last lockdown there was a Dunkirk spirit kind of attitude, this time it’s more begrudging, “all right, but you’re getting on my last nerve now”.
+19
I think you’re missing the part where people in March and April really had no idea what we were dealing with and so adopted conservative precautions to protect themselves and their communities (i.e the precautionary principle was applied). As time has passed, those of us with critical faculties have been able to see that the threat this virus poseshas been grossly exaggerated and is really confined to the most vulnerable, who are under threat from all viruses including the regular flu as a matter of course. We see the damage caused by the response to be far more damaging to Irish society across all ages and so the sensible and intelligent path forward is to recognise the actual risk level from the virus and get back to normal living taking certain precautions to protect those who are most at risk. There is no such thing as a risk free society. Those seeking to pursue that approach in respect of Covid are anti science and are causing untold damage to the health of the nation and our future prospects.