This morning.
Jervis Street Luas, Dublin 1.
From today, masks/facerags/covid thongs/muzzles/mouth diapers are no longer required on public transport.
The requirement for children aged nine to 12 to wear masks in the classroom is also dropped from today, along with the requirement for secondary students to wear masks.
However…via Irish Times:
Teachers and parents support the wearing of masks by older primary schoolchildren, while the children themselves are evenly split on the experience, research commissioned by the National Public Health Emergency Team shows.
Three primary schools – one urban, one suburban and one rural – were surveyed for the research. Some 38 per cent of nine to 12-year-olds said they were happy to continue wearing masks, while another 7 per cent were in favour but for reasons such as protecting others. Almost 46 per cent said they wanted to stop wearing masks.
Let it go.
Great to have reached this point. Everyone still wearing them in my local vets and coffee shop this morning, because it’s easy to do and not much hassle and zero tyranny. But maskflakes assemble!
It’s a scientific fact that masks don’t stop virus transmission and when a government mandates them it is most definitely a form of tyranny.
It’s a scientific fact they they do limit spread and mandating them during a public health emergency is no more tyrannical than mandating seat belts in cars.
Nonsense as usual from you Nigel.
There is no quality scientific evidence that masks limit the spread of viruses like covid. They might be good for surgeons in an operating theatre to limit blood splatter and bacterial infections when working on an open wound but at the moment there is no evidence in support of their use for a virus like covid. The evidence overwhelmingly shows they are not of benefit.
There is evidence that seat belts can help save lives in car crashes.
i’ve posted evidence here before of a major study that showed even the least effective masks limited spread somewhat.
and that study is completely debunked when viewed along side all of the other studies showing masks do not work.
If you close your eyes to all of the other studies it still doesn’t make them disappear.
It has not been debunked.
It has but you wouldn’t know because you don’t look at anything that proves you’re wrong
No, it’s because I haven’t seen anything credible that proves that study wrong.
because you won’t look
…at dodgily funded fake science sites that are full of disinformation.
Funded by who?
Big air?
No Nigel, it’s not “dodgily funded fake science sites”
It’s the US CDC, the EU CDC, the WHO, Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, BMJ, Cochrane review, AIP, the New England Medical Journal to name a few off the top of my head.
You would know this if you looked at them but you refuse to view anything that proves you wrong.
If I recall correctly they were all tiny inconclusive studies, as opposed to the major one I linked to.
Your recollection is wrong.
Ah, the Fear of the Droplet is strong in this one. It’s a generous gesture by the loons, to display their lunacy so openly, there shouldn’t be any prejudice against the mentally ill, in this day & age but, let’s be honest, you don’t want to sit beside them on the bus, do ya?
As a little bonus, long-term mask wearing will cause scarring on the lungs, reducing their ability to scare children & other afflicted adults with their grim fairy tales by dint of the asthmatic wheezing sound they’ll make when they try to talk & even better, it will weaken their immune systems, so the coughing & spluttering will also reduce the time they can spend talking. I think we can all get behind that?
So, keep yizzer masks on, glue them to yer faces, it’ll be good for everyone elses’ mental health, in so many ways.
Well done, mostly everyone.
+1
everyone on my train carriage still wearing theirs this morning. I’ve not gotten my yearly February cold as well so can’t ask for more.
Can’t see myself wearing one going forward but that’s a net positive to the world cause I’m so gorgeous like.
(In NY it appears to be broken down by education and social status,it was never brave nor defiant in NY,to not wear one,just the homeless and low income didn’t,same now)
*wink*
Same as yourself, paul.
Almost everyone in my local shop had one on, and there was no hassle either way, same on the bus just now.
Excellent, Paul, if you can manage to avoid the Coronaviruses, Rhinoviruses & 200 or so other viruses which give humans colds, for just a few short years, your immunity to these otherwise harmless viruses will wane considerably, due to the anti-fragile nature of our adaptive immune systems & you’ll be a prime candidate for Pneumonia, the next time you actually do catch one. Luckily, perhaps, you’ll be spared from the effects of your own imbecility by the fact that Viruses are far too tiny to be stopped by anything that would also permit you to breathe.
You could try a plastic bag over your head, you’ll suffocate, which might upset other passengers on your Dort corriage but at least you’ll get the last laugh on those filthy little virions.
No matter what side of this issue you have been on, I think we can all agree that the days of someone sitting on a train or arriving into the office coughing and spluttering have gone.
You are not that important, you can be done without. In fact, your job will probably be advertised before you are even cold in the ground.
I agree, it’s gone from bad manners to actually completely unacceptable to be coughing away on top of people, not using a tissue when you sneeze etc. I really hope people keep washing their hands PROPERLY, the single most effective thing you can do to remain healthy.
Sure wash your hands. sneeze into your arm etc, normal etiquette, but I think the idea that some seem to now have that everyone should do everything we can to limit the spread of respiratory infections is completely misguided. Being exposed to these kinds of viruses on a regular basis is how we keep our immune systems strong and primed to minimise the severity of future infections. That’s how we’ve co-existed with these viruses since the dawn of humanity. Getting a cold in winter is like getting a booster.
Of course different approach if your health is already frail but the build up of natural immunity in the rest of community is what helps protect the vulnerable.
How many respiratory infections are exacerbated by air pollution, which degrades the human immune system and directly kills thousands each year? How much does wearing face masks contribute to protecting people from the effects of air pollution?
People seem to forget that their built urban environments are full of poison spewed by millions of combustion engines.
Not saying people SHOULD wear masks in outdoor urban environments, but it’s an entirely rational choice to do so.
Also to get rid of combusion engines.
What you drivin at the mo?
Bike and train.
“We do not drive, we are driven. But we cycle ourselves.’
If I did use a car, would that make me wrong? Our country has been designed to make car use the most convenient form of transport, even though they are big, noisy, dangerous, expensive, polluting and take up massive amounts of space. If I used a car and said, ‘as a society we should have less cars’ it would still be vaild, because I am a stakeholder in that society.
“ Bike and train.” would have sufficed.
Geez. Ye can’t even ask a simple question without gettin a guys life story these days.
Trains powered by diesel? The ones that are never turned off?
Yes, Giggidy, except for the Luas and Dart when in Dubin. Please join me in campaigning for a greener, more extensive public transport infrastructure.
Where and when are you campaigning next?
It’s all a bit local in terms of keeping buses and trains going – we kept the local train station open, yay! Even got upgraded! Okay, not sure if we were actually reponsible, but i’ll take it.
Nationally I support assorted cycle groups, signing petitions, for better cycling infrastructure, that sort of thing. Haven’t done a critical mass event in yonks,not much call for them here. But hopefully we’ll be able to put some events together for National Bike Week in May. We used to get this historian to come out and we’d have families cycling around to old castles and points of historical interest, it was lovely, hope we get to do it again.
As for political campaigns, I supported the Greens, and though they’re a horrible let-down in many ways, they have boosted rural public transport considerably.
I might get more activist in the summer if people are organising things, we’ll see. Extinction Rebellion has a strong contingent round here, might join in again if the health allows.
So no firm plans then
I’m sure that’ll get the problem fixed in no time…
Wow. You were really saving that up and angling to get it in there and it came out all petty and cheap.
In terms of the common cold, Janet Dreams, washing your hands is only effective against Coronaviruses as their lipid capsule allows them to survive for extended periods on non-porous surfaces.
In Summer, Rhinoviruses float in the air for long periods of time, their streamlined surfaces having evolved to facilitate this. Maybe just stay indoors, in an airtight, darkened room, away from other humans?
They’ll thank you for it & anyway guys like me will be going around, cross-infecting dozens of women & in honour of all the germophobes, I’ll refrain from covering my face when I cough & discontinue using hankies by the simple expedient of wiping my snot on every surface I can find.
Droplet Terrorists have so much to share.
You would hope so, anyway, yes and I say that as one of those idiots who’d drag his pox ridden carcass into the office at the risk of my peers health before Covid.
I wonder if the advent of WFH will eventually cut back on the number of days ‘lost’ to sick leave as some ailments that may have kept people from work will now just require them to work remotely
Drawback of that is it might erode sick pay. ‘So what if you’re sick? You’re working for home, just prop the laptop on your matress and sneeze away from the screen!’
I don’t think there’s any ‘might’ about it, unfortunately.
Bless your little cotton socks, Nigel. It’s Pay that will be eroded, not Sick Pay.
Yes it is a double edged sword. You may have something which is transmissible but still fit to work from home.
The remote thing is going to shake things up anyways. At the moment most jobs are being advertised as remote, even though they are usually hybrid- which means agencies know that home working is a very sellable feature.
The next step in that process is for Irish Rail to offer a 2-3 day a week TaxSaver as there is no point paying for 5, if you are not going to avail of it.
Self pleasuring From Home is just a temporary phase, ANO, it’s soon to be replaced by DWFH (Don’t Work From Home) or UBI, as it’s better known. The New (Normal) World Order & Zee Fourf Undewstrial Rewolution that you’ve worked so hard to promote, you see, well it doesn’t require workers & non-workers can’t afford homes, so you’ll be in your pod, eating bugs, owning nothing, being happy.
Death, when it finally claims you, will be a joyful release.
Now you are talking. 100% yes to this. And down with spitting (especially on the 83 bus).
‘Teachers and parents support the wearing of masks by older primary schoolchildren’
Teacher and, so far, two kids with covid out in my youngest’s class last week, and there are kids in that class with disabilities. Try to refrain from your inane crapulous mockery.
Try to restrain your hyperbolic, pearl-clutching hysteria, Nigel, human beings have been catching colds for a millennium at least & the shortage of humans has yet to emerge as a Global Problem. It’s time for you to exit your fantasy world & try to make some sort of connection with Reality.
MASKS DON’T STOP VIRIONS.
CHICKEN WIRE CAN’T STOP FLIES.
The medical & scientific worlds know this, it’s time you grew up & faced facts, your infantilism is wearying even those closest to you.
Yes, they asked me to.
I’ve binned all of mine.
And Johnny’s binned ALL the time. Ba dum tish!
You guys should hang out. He and I are pals now…
He’s recruiting for new pals! It could be YOU!
———-
Again, when I say “you”, I’m referring to you. Not me
I went to McDonalds to get a coffee this morn.
Good to see all the staff there still wearing their masks too
They’ve made the right choice.
Now if only they’d realise the food they serve is more deadly then Covid ever was – we’d be onto a winner. ;p
You made the wrong choice,again pal.
(Mickey D’s is not coffee,a big man like yourself should be slamming espressos)
“ wrong choice,again pal”
Oh good we’re “pals” now
So…Whatcha do Sat night?
Binged on Joe Rogan and yank fast food,was the line too mental at Krispy?
I noticed you didn’t ask me about my Sat night. :(
Starting to think our friendship is one sided.
Bet you’re a selfish lover too. ;p
This comes out of Canada- it is an update on a previous sketch- but still quite funny.
https://www.tiktok.com/@sirlaggalot42/video/7068522139854425346
…your embrace and luv of all things bad about yank culture is just inappropriate for a so called Dub, the unacknowledged adoption of the crass element or elements of yank culture,like fast food for breakfast and Rogan is kinda pathetic.
Co -ff–ee Johnny.
I get the McDonald’s Coffee.
It’s strong and consistent – just how I like my men.
Don’t listen to Rogan. His show goes on too long.
I’ve a poor attention spa…. oooh look, a squirrel!
..at the drive tru – or in person on Monday mornings,can’t imagine a worse start my week,no Irish cafe’s or coffee shops to support ?
yeah breakfast of champions,its just like the ‘plastic paddies’ everyone laughs at, festooned in green,the plastic yanks sipping Micky D’s breakfast coffee,from the drive tru oh how progressive…zzz.
i have absolutely no idea why anyone need’s support McDonalds.
True, Micko, McDonald’s must specify in their job adverts that only munters need apply. The masks save us from a nauseating experience that their food is but a pale, blobby imitation of.
The Big Mac is Whack,
The Whopper is King,
order me some more of them onion rings…
Next crucial step needs to be to commission an investigation to best determine what impact the intervention actually had since its introduction in 2020. Unfortunately the collective empirical evidence from around the world already indicates that mask mandates failed to have a meaningful impact on community spread – which would be consistent with the pre-Covid era scientific consensus on masks for Influenza. Of course it’s also clear at this point that there have been various negative consequences of the mandates.
Either way, an analysis needs to be done to best inform public health policy as we move forward. If the mandates haven’t been effective then acknowledge that and never impose them again, I would say. It’s not good enough to fob us off with “well done everyone for your great effort!”
Absolutely, not taking the time now to learn what we can from what did and didn’t work over the last two years would at best be a wasted opportunity.
‘Unfortunately the collective empirical evidence from around the world already’
‘When they do the study and the results are different from my pre-fixed conclusion, it will prove a conspiracy.’
Spoiler alert: it’s not likely to happen. Over the past two years, the Irish authorities have shown contempt for the general public by demonstrating no inclination to produce evidence in the form of cost-effective analyses that their public health interventions have been having a net benefit. On the contrary, they’ve repeatedly indulged in political spin,fallacious unfalsifiable arguments and blatant data manipulation to present themselves and their measures as beyond reproach.
I think a study is highly unlikely to be commissioned any time soon – and in unlikely event that it is, given the pattern of behaviour over the past two years, the rational standpoint to take would be to approach with scepticism and demand for complete transparency so that the findings could be independently scrutinised.
See, it’s ALREADY a conspiracy theory before anyone\s even had the chance to do the studies.
But a massive years-long multi-disciplinary multi-faculty international study would almost certainly be part of improving pandemic preperation and response – I expect there would be a lot of opposition to that from the people who have all along opposed pandemic responses. I’d expect full-on attacks of the same sort that gave us climate change denial.
Here’s a report for you to be getting on with:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/
I know it coud lead people to think we might need to be doing things about bad things that are getting liklier to happen and more and more frequent, and perhaps you’re ideologically opposed to that?
Oh goodness, Nigel, you’re living in the era with the longest, healthiest lives ever, by a long shot. That we are reaching the point of diminishing marginal returns in medical interventions was firmly established with the toxic fake covid vaccine failure but there has never been a time with less sickness, less excess mortality.
Your worldview is as twisted as your syntax.
Nigel, girl, the first section of that was the most sensible thing you ever ever contributed here, ever. Maybe just keep repeating flawless quotes?
Try it for a few years, see how it goes, eh?
I hope you copied & pasted it, I hate to think of you retyping it, then putting all that effort into creating yet another Strawman logical fallacy. Have you learned nothing?
Yes, you’ve learned nothing.
+1
It was never science based. It was just the government’s over reliance on sentiment analysis that brought the mandates. On a side note the travelling community by and large ignored a lot of these mandates such as masks, social distancing. Surprisingly they weren’t dropping like flies.
The homeless were hugging and kissing throughout, not a mask in sight, still grand (well, as grand as they were to begin with).
I agree, however I fear it will all be swallowed up in the next great crisis. We’d have to work to keep ramifications and damage done during the pandemic front and center in people’s minds, or those who perpetrated it will get off scott free again. We seem more concerned about pharma trials and damage done in mother and baby home decades ago than what’s just been done to us all last year.
Glad to see the back of them, but as others said, would be good to see some basic manners around coughing and sneezing continue.
You should try China for a comparison, Gavin. Hong Kong, especially.
lol with the “business as usual” on Broadsheet
listen lads, if riots start in Moscow by teatime today ye all might be scrambling for a mask of a very different kind amongst other things
Ah, goldenbrown, texture like sun, etc, etc. Did I not tell ya to lay off that smack? How many times did you nod during the writing of that zonked-out jibber-jabber?
Riots in Moscow, ok, that’s going to cause gas of some kind to be dropped on Dublin!!??
Fabulous skag, obviously.
R U chasing or jabbing?
That lady on the luas has a nice content smile. It’ll take a while yet before most people feel comfortable about seeing people without a mask, yet alone removing it themselves. A masked lady entering a shop stepped back when she saw me exit the shop without a mask. I smiled at her to reassure her. Felt good for my smile to be seen. I couldn’t see her expression. We’ll get there – it takes time to heal wounds.
I agree- just do your own thing.
Some people really have been traumatised by the whole nonsense. They’ll relax when they are good and ready and if they still feel safer keeping them on, then so what?
What we don’t want is to get like parts of the states where they are perceived as a political statement and people get harassed because of it- that is just the same in reverse.
I do think shop workers should also have a choice of course.
Just came back from my first shopping trip in 18 months, now that I don’t have to stick anything over my face. Glad to say that, in the large chain store I visited, all the staff bar one had big visible smiles – the other one may have been smiling behind his mask, I guess. Sadly, more than half the customers had their faces still covered but, yes, it will take some people a while to get over the indoctrination and scaremongering. As SOQ says, some people really have been traumatised and I do hope they will be able to relax in time. Meanwhile, I’m just enjoying being given back the freedom that should never have been taken away.
Delighted for ya John
Nice one
Thanks, Micko!
New York is a nightmare, SOQ, it’s finished, I’d say. It was a pretty mad place before, now it’s on a different planet. Then again, their large public hospitals just went in for wholesale slaughter, so it’s a very dangerous place to get sick without top dollar insurance.
Enter with a cough, exit in a coffin.
I won’t be dropping in to my hometown for the foreseeable future, either, not until Democracy is restored & Trudeau’s residing in an asylum for the criminally insane.
Snigger..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_Black_Lives_Matter