Ah.
Here.
Last night.
Claire Byrne Live on RTE One.
Claire Byrne, host of what is fast becoming the strangest programme on terrestrial television, ‘receives’ a drive-by flu vaccine injection from former Fine Gael TD and pharmacist Kate O’Connell.
Anyone?
Also: name that jammer, anyone?
Watch in full here
Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health
Very senior Govt source says we’re “in a very dangerous place” as decision is being represented as “politicians versus doctors” when it “never ever should have been allowed to get to this point of showdown.” They add there are “serious questions and [a] major fallout”. @rtenews
— Paul Cunningham (@RTENewsPaulC) October 5, 2020
If it’s accurate that govt is rejecting public health advice, this will be the decision that encapsulates how private profits come before public health and lives for FF/FG.
People will pay the price with the spread of the coronavirus.
The parties should be made pay a price too.
— Paul Murphy (@paulmurphy_TD) October 5, 2020
This evening.
Some reaction to the decision to discard NPHET advice on bringing the country to Level 5…
Via RTÉ
A senior Government source said we are “in a very dangerous place” as decision is being represented as “politicians versus doctors” when it “never ever should have been allowed to get to this point of showdown”.
The source added that there are “serious questions and [a] major fallout”.
RTÉ also understands that while ministers took NPHET’s concern about the exponential growth of the virus “very seriously”, there was “resistance” to moving to Level 5 “at this time.”
Now Cabinet is set to decide on a proposal to put the entire country on Level 3, with additional enforcement.
A real fallout?
Or bait and switch?
We may never know.
Govt set to veto NPHET advice, adopt Level 3 nationwide (RTÉ)
Earlier: ‘You Were Elected To Lead’
And this is where the “two weeks to flatten the curve” has ended up
I find this heartbreaking https://t.co/rVe9Kc8jDM
— Simon Dolan #KBF (@simondolan) October 5, 2020
A UK funeral service under Covid social distancing restrictions.
Earlier: Hi Five
Top from left: Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise Leo Varadkar, Taoiseach Micheal Martin and Minister for Climate Action, Communications Networks and Transport Eamon Ryan; Senator Michael McDowell
This afternoon.
Further to the possibility of a Level 5 lockdown for the entire country….
….Senator Michael McDowell, a former Minister for Justice, has released the following statement
‘I am appealing to the three coalition party leaders to reject the NPHET advice that the country should go to Level 5 in its entirety.
I am also appealing to the three leaders to refuse to be manipulated into a cynical (and perhaps intended) “compromise” with NPHET that we should move to Level 4.
Futile
Moving to either level will create untold misery, additional deaths, huge psychiatric and psychological damage, irreparable economic and social harm, and will be futile.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that the situation in three or four weeks’ time will be significantly different if we now go into a lockdown or quasi-lockdown. None whatever.
There is no reason to believe that infection rates or community transmission rates would not resume at or climb almost immediately to current rates if Level 5 or Level 4 restrictions were imposed nationally and if they were relaxed in coming weeks and months.
The reported NPHET advice will, if accepted, turn out to be semi-permanent lasting for many months.
Lockdown’s Consequences
Accepting NPHET advice will have entirely predictable consequences:
Increased mortality from cancer, heart disease and other conditions due to continued dislocation of the health services
Untold suffering for those continuing to be deprived of vital social services for the mentally and physically disabled and their families
Severe psychiatric and psychological damage to vulnerable people
Greatly increased domestic abuse
Loneliness and isolation for the elderly
Catastrophic consequences for economic life hitting especially the indigenous SME sectors
Collapse of many enterprises due to insolvency and foreclosures
Massively increased unemployment and resultant poverty and misery.
These consequences, among others, are not to be chosen by default out of weakness now.
Unacceptable
We simply cannot go back into lockdown. We have got to learn to live with Covid infection and with significant risk of community transmission. Epidemiology and mathematical modelling is only one part of the story.
We know that further lockdown will have inevitable mortality and health consequences that lie outside simple epidemiology. The reported NPHET advice is replete with existential threats to the “common good” more widely understood.
Hospitalisation rates, intensive care admission rates and genuine Covid mortality rates are certainly significant issues for government.
Recent evidence concerning the categorisation of Covid related deaths suggests that the figure of approximately 1800 may be inflated. Likewise the evidence given to the Dáil Covid committee’s final meeting that the median age of Covid related death was “in the high eighties” requires us to put purely epidemiological advice into a real perspective when confronted with the clearly known and inevitable consequences of accepting NPHET’s reported advice.
Living With Community Transmission
The younger cohorts of the population (including nearly everyone of working age) are entitled to live their lives as normally as circumstances can permit. It is not a question of pitching their interests into a conflict with those of the older or more vulnerable cohorts in our population. Keeping schools and creches open goes nowhere near what is now demanded.
Entire swathes of our society and of social and economic activity simply cannot be put into suspended animation in pursuit of unattainable epidemiological goals or entirely temporary effects.
The cohesion that we have witnessed up to this point was based on a number of suppositions.
These include the supposition that our health authorities would address as a matter of extreme emergency shortfalls in ICU capacity. Little or nothing was done.
The supposition also was that we would establish a really effective test, track and trace system as a matter of extreme emergency. This does not appear to have happened either.
I am appealing to the leaders of the coalition and to their parties to reject the NPHET advice and to articulate with conviction, courage and honesty a different course for Irish society over the next number of weeks and months. The NPHET path is neither necessary nor sustainable – politically, socially, or economically.
You were elected to lead – not to be led.’
Senator Michael McDowell calls on coalition to reject NPHET Level 5 advice (Senator ichael McDowell)
Earlier: Hi Five
Update:
#BREAKING: Government rejects Nphet calls for Level 5 but will introduce Level 3 Covid restrictions https://t.co/fSp48fpH0V pic.twitter.com/hOeJCJzijC
— Independent.ie (@Independent_ie) October 5, 2020
Gulp.
Buds from suspected Illegal plants with a ‘street value’ of €60,000 and €5,000 of suspected cocaine were seized following a search of a residence in Sandycove, County Dublin, on Saturday along with €7,500 in cash and three phones.
The streets are a little safer today.
Behind you.
This afternoon.
Government Buildings, Dublin 2.
Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, waves at Green Party Leader Eamon Ryan today before a discussion between NPHET and the leaders of the three government parties concerning recommendation that the entire country be placed under a nationwide Level 5 lockdown to ‘combat rising cases of Covid-19’.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics programme yesterday, before any mention of Level 5, Mr Ryan said he hoped Level 4 restrictions could be avoided in Dublin and in Donegal, both of which are currently at Level 3.
He said:
“What we’re seeking to do is not to eradicate the virus, I don’t think that’s a viable option but to stabilise it and I think, yes, there’s real concern when you look at other counties [case numbers are] rising very fast.”
Earlier: High Noon
Update:
This afternoon.
Leaving Level 5 discussions were, top from left: Dr Holohan; Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health; and Chair of NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group (IEMAG) Professor Philip Nolan.
They don’t need masks.
They only fear kryptonite.
This morning/afternoon.
Balgriffin, Dublin 13.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has his temperature checked before viewing the site of new social housing from Respond housing association.
From top: Minister for health Stephen Donnelly and Chief Medical officer Tony Holohan
No comment from Tony Holohan (or any ministers) as they arrive to discuss NPHET’s bombshell recommendation. @VirginMediaNews pic.twitter.com/xckvsWYl2k
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) October 5, 2020
This afternoon.
Government Buildings, Merrion Street, Dublin 2.
More as we get it.
Where is your mask(s)?
Meanwhile…
NPHET has said that the powers available under public health laws need to be fully and visibly utilised, RTÉ News has learned.
While the letter to Government does not specifically reference the Garda, it calls for a renewed commitment to enforcement of regulations.
Um.
Govt party leaders meet Holohan over NHPET recommendation (RTÉ)
Earlier: On The Level
Saturday afternoon.
Wicklow Street, Exchequer Street and Dame Court, Dublin.
Level 3. Soak it up.
Over the weekend.
Two of Ireland’s most celebrated journalists Gene Kerrigan and Vincent Browne urge the wearing of masks be it out of fear, in Mr Kerrigan’s case, or the possibility that it might help eliminate the rona ‘almost completely’, according to Mr Browne.
