Just Like That

at


This morning.

Merrion Street, Dublin 2.

Tanaiste Leo Varadkar arriving at Government Buildings today for a meeting of the party leaders ahead of a full cabinet meeting later this afternoon to discuss the full lifting of covid restrictions.

Where is your…oh, forget it.

Sam Boal/RollingNews

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44 thoughts on “Just Like That

  1. Fergalito

    A whimper, not a bang.

    Bizarre in a two year period (and whatever is to come) of out there beyond the peripheries of the universe bizarre. Reading the tea-leaves this time last week one would not have expected this volte-face (can i call it that?) and seismic shift in policy.

    There are a lot of things I’m far more sure of now having endured as we all have the management of the State by those in power and a lot of things i held to be true that are now copper-fastened as such with a bolt-on lead lid.

    Lou Reed said it best when he said “you are what you perceive” and let’s hope that “what comes is better than what came before.” Good man yersefl Lou …

    1. Nigel

      Oh come on. They’ve been gagging at the bit to reopen. Oh sure they were being grown-up and responsible and making the hard choices in the first lockdown, but then it turns out that pandemics are messy and unpredictable and have more waves and variants so they got fed up with whole thing, made stupid mistakes begrudged every support for ordinary people, exposed their incompetence when it comes to health care and now they see a chance to out it all behind them, and they’re jumping in with both feet.

      1. K.Cavan

        Ah, Nigel, “hard choices” is it now? Decisions can be hard, choices can be good or bad, you’re spewing out meaningless buzz-word slogans. Again.

    2. SOQ

      England forced their hand- not just ROI but the other three countries in the UK.

      And while some give credit to Johnson, I give credit to the ordinary English people who seen through the BS and took to the streets in such numbers.

      People taking to the streets is the most powerful of all statements because it reminds politicians of who is the real boss.

      1. Zaccone

        +1

        As hard as it is to say we have Boris to thank for this. Scotland and Wales (and lots of places in Europe) locked down for a month in December/January, England didn’t, and we saw England had no difference in its results for hospital usage or patient outcomes.

        England proved the pointlessness of restrictions by being a very large, glaring, real world example. Without their example we’d only be slowly emerging, with _an abundance of caution_, over the next 2 months as our glorious leaders initially suggested.

        1. E'Matty

          Totally agree but I also think all of us deserve credit for exposing their lies like Tony’s 5% of Covid hospital cases not being treated for Covid. We constantly challenged this and also the claims re unvaccinated. A week later, only 30-40% actually being treated, the rest asymptomatic. None in ICU though that figure remained effectively static for the last month. The unvaccinated clogging ICU garbage expose for the deceitful nonsense we always said it was.

          They’ve capitulated as they know they’ve lost the broader public since Christmas. Trying to save face now. Will be watchful for the coming weeks though. The agenda carries on, perhaps from another angle (climate change, cyber security, energy etc).

      2. TenPin Terry

        Why the reluctance to give thanks to Boris ?
        The UK’s world-beating vaccine programme, the decision to order and pay for vast quantities of vaccines months ahead of the EU’s catastrophic acquisition procedure, the rapid roll-out, the decision to re-open England last summer against widespread political opposition and the fantastic booster programme are ALL down to the leadership of Boris.
        If it had all gone tits-up you’d be forming an orderly queue now to put the boot in.
        It’s why all this folderol over a few work-related slurps in the Downing Street garden is so pathetic.
        Boris Churchill was the great leader who rose to the occasion in Blighty’s hour of need.
        Ireland got a Cork langer who spent most of the pandemic with his bald head wedged between Tony Holohan’s sweaty buttocks.

        1. SOQ

          If you think Johnston is a great leader then I suggest you ask your doctor to review your meds- he is a bluffer and a chancer, nothing more.

          They were going to come right up against the wall with the April deadline for NHS vaccine mandates- because so many were prepared to walk. That won’t happen now because once the emergency powers go, so will the vaccines.

          1. scottser

            johnson’s only lifting the restrictions in one last desperate attempt to stay in power. it’s got nothing to do with pandemic strategy.

          2. TenPin Terry

            Cobblers.
            Plan B was put in place as a temporary measure when Omicron arrived and it was always going to be lifted now when numbers cliff-edged.
            The huge booster rollout programme was also phenomenally successful because the UK started its rollout so much earlier and while Ireland was still waiting for any vaccine crumbs to come their way.
            The idea that street protests had any part to play in the scientific advice given to Boris is also bollocks.
            He took the big decisions last July when Sir Kneelalot was predicting catastrophe and Jimmy Krankie and the Welsh non-entity were still playing separatist politics with their citizens’ lives.
            Grow a pair and admit what everyone knows is true if you dare.
            Otherwise it’s just that old inferiority complex thing again.It hasn’t gone away you know.

          3. SOQ

            I have no inferiority complex darling, so pack in your goading.

            They closed the night clubs and along with the rest, the club crowd took to the streets. There was even a rave outside No.10. They opened the clubs one week later.

            As for the experts- Ferguson and his modelling BS? Really? After the first cycle, anyone with half a brain could see what he was about.

            They were called out and their backbenchers started to feel the heat. Public taking to the streets in such numbers is never a good look- and fair play to them.

            @scottser- you are probably right.

        2. TenPin Terry

          Not for the first time you’re suffering from COVID delusions.
          Next thing you’ll be saying that a million people marching against Brexit helped reverse the decision after the referendum.
          Oh wait …

          1. SOQ

            Completely different- there was strong opinions on both sides on that issue before and after a referendum. Whatever side you were and are on- the people had their say. It was not government overreach like this.

        3. K.Cavan

          Here is The News, TenPin, the fake vaccines didn’t work.
          THE FAKE VACCINES DIDN’T WORK.
          thefakevaccinesdidn’twork.com
          Like every other Coronavirus in history, Sars02 mutated rapidly, as RNA viruses always do, into a highly-infectious Upper Respiratory Infection, what we call the Common Cold, in order to produce as many copies of it’s genome as possible.
          Nobody had anything to do with it.

          1. SOQ

            Right from the start, the real science was ignored in favour of what we can do to stop it. People argued that it must be the masks and it must be the lockdowns and it must be the vaccines, but in hindsight there was and is no correlation between any of that and infection/ hospital/ICU/ death rates.

            The whole thing was so bizarre that people who were never conspiratorial started to look around for other explanations. If there is nothing else behind it- and we don’t know that yet- then it was at best the biggest mass psychosis of our lifetimes.

            Personally I think there is, but am still trying to figure out what- Big Pharma corruption is certainly a part, I have no doubt about that.

      3. Kali

        I wouldn’t give to much credit to BJ. He was ready to go for more restrictions only a few weeks ago and it was a backbencher revolt that stopped it. The full opening is also a great distraction from his garden party woes.

        Still though, never look a gift horse in the mouth.

        1. K.Cavan

          Ah Kali, “garden party woes”, is it? The only people who care about that are the goon-squad media, now facing the inevitable demise of the MSM & the idiots who swore allegiance to the Fake Pandemic, now facing their own possible demise, cos they took the Emergency Use Only quaxx.

      4. f_lawless

        I think the current U-turn is a welcome development but its no cause for blind optimism. Only a few weeks ago, we had Varadkar describing Covid as “a long war that might last several years” and that “we should try to have periods of freedom and give people a bit of a break” in advance of variants as if our fundamental freedoms are now viewed as privileges to be granted. A few days ago he stated there “will be a severe variant, that will require further vaccination”. Are the current easing of restrictions being viewed as our stint of freedom, a pressure valve, before it’s back to more of the same?

        As far as I’m aware, much of Europe, seems to be on a different trajectory. The vaccine passport system being ramped up and expanded upon in Italy, France, Germany, etc; Spain is to shorten their vaccination certs’ validity; Covid vaccines becoming mandatory in Austria, etc.

        I see that two days ago the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change released a new policy document entitled “Living with Covid”. Of course this is the same institute that in May 2020 announced publicly: :
        “Our teams are now embedded in governments around the world, helping them to keep their people safe during this pandemic – not just in respect of Covid-19 itself but also the political and economic collateral damage”

        Tony Blair represents the vested interests of transnational Davos elites so in my view the various policy recommendations set out by his institute during the Covid era have been a good indicator as to what the agendas are of those elite players.

        The main focus of the institute’s current policy document entitled “Living with Covid”. is on the UK setting but I’d recommend reading it for an insight into what’s liable to be pushed for here and further afield.

        https://institute.global/policy/living-with-covid

        The odious ‘Covid Pass’ is still central to their planning despite the lack of evidence of its benefit and all the collateral damage it inflicts – two-tier society, undermining of the social contract, erosion of liberal democracy, civil liberties, etc:

        Quote:

        “Work with business to put in place the right infrastructure..(so that) a Covid Pass Can Be Turned On and Off as Required if a New, Deadlier, More Transmissible Variant Arises..

        ..As the world moves from pandemic to endemic status, Covid Passes remain the best option for managing individual and collective risk as the Covid situation evolves….

        ..For example, if case rates reach a certain number within a given time frame, the pass would be mandatory for entrance to all venues..”

        I note they’re still hell-bent on injecting “the whole world”, citing spurious scientific reasoning to back it up:

        “..until the whole world is vaccinated, we can’t rule out the very real possibility of other more serious variants emerging, some potentially able to evade vaccine-induced immunity”..

        Of course, naturally acquired immunity has to be denigrated in order to fit this policy:

        “Clarify messaging on natural immunity: Better messaging is needed to make clear that prior infection is not enough to protect against severe illness and death”

        1. SOQ

          The plan to inject the whole world despite clear evidence that over any sustained period the vaccines don’t work, is enough to make anyone dive down rabbit holes.

          1. Chris

            It wouldn’t be the biggest roll out ever. Most people have been vaccinated multiple times in their youth.

    3. K.Cavan

      Lou also said, of various politicians & public figures: “Stick a fork in their ass & turn ’em over, they’re done.”
      That’s what should happen to the idiots, politicians & senior civil serpents, who led us down the garden path to a Fake Pandemic that had no appreciable impact on the number of people who actually died in 2020, never pushed our hospital services closer to the perpetual brink they exist on but did expose huge swathes of our population as moronic, semi-literate goons & fascists.
      Luckily, we knew the Irish, quite well, so none of it came as a surprise, really.

  2. seanydelight

    The most unforgivable element in this whole drawn out saga, is ending the pandemic in week 3 of Dry January.

  3. V aka Frilly Keane

    I think this thread should be about shoes, botox, “obvious” grey coverups, handbags, hats

    and orgasms in menopause

    ‘Dunno about the rest of ye, but You’ve cheapened it Bodger
    ruined it – #justlikethat
    so you did

    Its like you killed off Big
    and stole his records

  4. Point

    This place has become depressing. That’s my honest feeling. I’m not picking a side. A virus isn’t political. Can we have one week…/ just one? Without covid posts? I miss the fun in here. Genuinely makes me emotional

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