Oh Jesus, I read the title and thought it was about 'The Troubles' coming to the US over the insurrection. Which I thought would be really bad. But then it was about covid-19, and, well ... that actually may be worse in terms of casualties. Good Lord.
I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months
191–200 of 206 posts
Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And who knows how much of how many people’s lives will be lived in poverty and other forms of misery because of the economic destruction we’ve opted into to slow the spread of the virus. Plenty of less-rich countries took much stronger steps to prevent economic destruction even with stronger control measures than the US took. We didn’t opt into poverty/misery to slow the spread of the virus, we opted into it becaus…
We could have 1. Done a real lockdown, with strict, nationwide enforcement, trashing the economy for a few months but beating the disease. Or 2. Done nothing and saved the economy, shouldering massive loss of life as the virus ran unopposed through the population. But, no, we somehow managed to do the worst of both worlds: 3. we implemented uncoordinated, half-assed business closures and widely-ignored “stay-at-home”…
It's unclear whether "1" was actually possible, given the political/legal structure of the United States. Who, exactly, would be promulgating and enforcing such an order?
Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hindsight is 10/10.
Uh, there was and is no "hindsight" involved here. The scientific consensus about coronavirus and how to fight it (wearing masks, lockdowns and contact tracing) was clear pretty shortly after the whole drama began. The problem was politicians, not just in the US, didn't have the guts to tell and explain their citizens that. The governments that did (New Zealand) or had prior epidemics experience / a population with a…
Right. The mask data goes back a century and very good studies were published re SARS and masks after mask data was discarded and ignored by many during that illness. Quarantines and social distancing aren't new, never were.
Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months
#194I feel like everyone continues to assume COVID-19 infection has an exponential curve but it's been shown by Nobel prize winner Michael Levitt that it actually follows a Gompertz function more accurately. Not only that but the WHO recently released a statement saying that PCR testing for COVID-19 is not suitable as it detects many forms of respiratory problems including the common cold. I feel like the author of this…
>Not only that but the WHO recently released a statement saying that PCR testing for COVID-19 is not suitable as it detects many forms of respiratory problems including the common cold. From what I read in the WHO link, they are mostly saying that users should read the manual and check the cycle treshold to make sure no false negative results are seen.
Background noise or high cycles will likely disturb the specificity it is seeking. Thus meaning a common cold individual being tested may in fact just have a common cold virus of sorts.
Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
We could have 1. Done a real lockdown, with strict, nationwide enforcement, trashing the economy for a few months but beating the disease. Or 2. Done nothing and saved the economy, shouldering massive loss of life as the virus ran unopposed through the population. But, no, we somehow managed to do the worst of both worlds: 3. we implemented uncoordinated, half-assed business closures and widely-ignored “stay-at-home”…
It's unclear whether "1" was actually possible, given the political/legal structure of the United States. Who, exactly, would be promulgating and enforcing such an order?
With competent federal coordination and incentives, all 50 states could have used their emergency powers or even legislation to implement stricter lockdowns with real enforcement.
State and local police would enforce it, again, with the proper incentives. Fire the few local yokel sheriffs refusing to enforce. They have the ability, need the willingness. If they can catch me going 70 in a 45 or avoiding my income taxes, they can catch me going to Olive Garden.
We have the political ability but not the political will.
Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also Irish. +1 on your assessment here. The virulent strain narrative was peddled by the Irish government who went against medical advice and tried to deflect blame. The evidence doesn’t support the narrative. I think the COVID-fatigue angle is quite interesting though. As critical as I am of the government they were under a lot of pressure from the populous to provide some sort of respite.
Isn’t this last bit in some sense a good thing? Representative government changing policies to reflect a shift in the population’s preference after ten months of dealing with these restrictions?
Yeah, it’s really hard to be overly critical. You could argue the government did its civic duty here, public sentiment was overwhelming in favor of reduced restrictions.
Unfortunately, as detailed elsewhere in comments, enough of the populous didn’t respond in kind in fulfilling theirs - which is what the decision needed to work.
That said you could also argue this was predictable. Our diaspora are scattered about the globe, and coming home for Christmas is a common event and our UK border basically doesn’t exist. Similarly, folks who are originally from elsewhere in the EU flying home for Christmas then back.
Overlay the drinking/socializing culture, which hits its busiest period around December and watch the R number tip upwards.
Full disclosure: I agreed with this government decision at the time, but was quite surprised / shocked at the resultant case explosion.
Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's unclear whether "1" was actually possible, given the political/legal structure of the United States. Who, exactly, would be promulgating and enforcing such an order?
With competent federal coordination and incentives, all 50 states could have used their emergency powers or even legislation to implement stricter lockdowns with real enforcement. State and local police would enforce it, again, with the proper incentives. Fire the few local yokel sheriffs refusing to enforce. They have the ability, need the willingness. If they can catch me going 70 in a 45 or avoiding my income taxe…
So, it would have been possible under the hypothesis that all 50 states can agree on an incredibly controversial policy? I doubt all 50 states can agree on whether the earth is more than 10,000 years old, so this sounds like a fantasy.
Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months
#198I'm Irish in Ireland, I've been following the matter closely. Ireland had one of the strictest lockdowns in most of Europe since March, no pubs, nightclubs, limited restaurants, churches, limited sports, 5km travel restrictions were on and off. We masked up early and our national broadcaster was constantly warning everyone non-stop. Schools were open however. We were the poster boy for lockdown success up until at le…
> The WHO warns that lockdown should only be treated as a last resort, to truly flatten the curve and no more. We ignored that. Countries that have eliminated the virus have ignored this for good results. Some like us here in Melbourne have used lockdowns to eliminate the virus, others like New Zealand have used them as a first resort to contain outbreaks. Because we eliminated it we're now back to (mostly) normal, w…
I'm in general agreement with what you've said, but note that border closures are a far more difficult proposition for Ireland.
The Good Friday Accords make closing the border with NI a political impossibility, and failing that you'd be relying on the UK instituting border/quarantine arrangements between Great Britain and NI.
Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months
#199I'm Irish in Ireland, I've been following the matter closely. Ireland had one of the strictest lockdowns in most of Europe since March, no pubs, nightclubs, limited restaurants, churches, limited sports, 5km travel restrictions were on and off. We masked up early and our national broadcaster was constantly warning everyone non-stop. Schools were open however. We were the poster boy for lockdown success up until at le…
[deleted]
Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The WHO warns that lockdown should only be treated as a last resort, to truly flatten the curve and no more. We ignored that. Countries that have eliminated the virus have ignored this for good results. Some like us here in Melbourne have used lockdowns to eliminate the virus, others like New Zealand have used them as a first resort to contain outbreaks. Because we eliminated it we're now back to (mostly) normal, w…
I'm in general agreement with what you've said, but note that border closures are a far more difficult proposition for Ireland. The Good Friday Accords make closing the border with NI a political impossibility, and failing that you'd be relying on the UK instituting border/quarantine arrangements between Great Britain and NI.
I thought that border did close briefly? I understand it's a touchy issue, but here we had some rather soft closures between states as well, borders don't have to be binary opened or closed. In some instances people could work permits to cross the border, for others we made virtual borders so people that live near the border could cross but no one else could. At various times we've thrown up some new borders, people couldn't travel from Melbourne to regional Victoria for instance.
Would options like that be viable with NI?