Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 401 posts

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#71

Post by ryanbrunner »

polote wrote: post #64
Mizza wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I fucking crazy for not knowing what's going on any more? US hospitalizations are at an all time high, 2000 people are still dying every day, and it feels like everybody is just okay with that now. What happened? I get that everybody is tired of it, I am too, but it feels like we wasted two years of everybody's life just the take the bullet anyway.

Well there are people dying everyday for any number of reasons. About 10k per day in the US. If you are at risk of dying from covid and you didn't get vaccinated it is kinda your fault now. And if you are vaccinated and dying from covid, well there is not much more you could have done.

There's people who are at risk of dying from COVID even when vaccinated. For many immunocompromised people, the vaccine has limited effect.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#72

Post by pizza234 »

prohobo wrote: post #56
lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is mostly unvaccinated people choosing to not get vaccinated, which people have lost patience for, and I cannot blame them.

Stop with this shit. It's not true. Most people in the hospitals for Covid are vaccinated. This is not an indictment against the vaccines, they prevent hospitalization, but the sheer number of vaccinated people still means they're the majority in the hospitals and ICUs, and the unvaccinated are a minority across the board. If you disagree with this statement, then here's hard proof: See page 7 of this UK report (late…

Here's the opposite "hard proof", CDC official: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidvi....

I've actually had a look at the document you pointed. It's very confusing. The last line of the report at page 7 states:

Rates of hospital admissions in the time range (8/nov - 5/dec):

- fully vaccinated: 493

- partially vaccinated + unvaccinated: 267

Rate per 100k admitted to hospital, same time range:

- fully vaccinated: 39

- partially vaccinated + unvaccinated: 208

I'm not sure how to reconcile the numbers above. Page 8 is a graph plotting the second metric (rate per 100k).

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#73

Post by PragmaticPulp »

akmarinov wrote: post #7

At this point, you’re either vaccinated, have been sick or are dead, so all good. With Omicron beating out Delta and not causing as many hospitalizations - sure, why not.

> At this point, you’re either vaccinated, have been sick or are dead, so all good.

Or you’re too young for the vaccine.

Hospitalizations among 0-1 year olds are significantly up with Omicron. Even 1-14 year olds represent a sizable portion of hospitalizations in many states, presumably biased toward those in that age group too young for the vaccine.

Being a parent of young children is not great right now as Omicron gets worse for children and everyone else in the world seems to have given up on helping you reduce your risk of your young kids catching it.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#74

Post by pottertheotter »

zapdrive wrote: post #38
jawns wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like we learned to live with polio and smallpox?

Polio and smallpox vaccines were non leaky. That's why we were able to eradicate it. COVID can't be eradicated until a non-leaky vaccine is developed. Google "leaky vaccines" if you don't know what they are.

This appears to be fear-mongering and misinformation.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2021/08/08/joe-rog...

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#75

Post by PragmaticPulp »

akmarinov wrote: post #48
nkrisc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you’re someone with a child under 5 who hasn’t been able to get vaccinated yet. My wife and I are fully vaccinated + booster but we are still choosing to be extra careful because our 4 year old can’t get vaccinated yet. So it’s a little frustrating to hear people talk like this when not everyone can get vaccinated yet.

Child death rate is basically 0

Death isn’t the only negative outcome.

Omicron has a higher propensity to infect the upper respiratory tract, which is less developed in young children.

You need to forget what you’ve heard about older variants and children. Look at the stats. More kids are being hospitalized in this wave and more deaths are occurring per capita in 0-14 year olds.

It’s not good.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#76

Post by yorwba »

zapdrive wrote: post #24
synquid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish that people who say things like "learn to live with it" actually meant it. We do indeed need to learn from the past two years, and that will result in something quite different from pretending that we're still in 2019.

One lesson learnt is, shutting down the borders does not help. It can at most delay the inevitable by a few weeks. If you don't have a vaccine ready to be administered to all your population in 3-4 weeks, shutting down the borders is pointless. Another one, politicians need to stop using science for propaganda. The mistrust in scientists has cost us dearly.

"weeks" is off by two orders of magnitude. Two years into the pandemic, less than 1% of the population in Taiwan and New Zealand have been infected. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#77

Post by goalieca »

emteycz wrote: post #12
synquid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish that people who say things like "learn to live with it" actually meant it. We do indeed need to learn from the past two years, and that will result in something quite different from pretending that we're still in 2019.

I'm quite sure it will be much more like 2019 than you think. People will learn to live with the deaths if it continues as it was in 2020/21. Prolong the lock downs more and most of the population will go crazy.

Even with the spike in covid, death rates per capita are lower now than when I was born. The world has never been safer!!

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#78

Post by eej71 »

xfitm3 wrote: post #45
lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is mostly unvaccinated people choosing to not get vaccinated, which people have lost patience for, and I cannot blame them.

Quoted post unavailable.

What's your assessment of the vaccines ability to reduce severity of infection and reduce the number of people who need hospitalization or even length of hospitalization?

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#79

Post by ryanbrunner »

ptero wrote: post #11
OliverM wrote: post #5

They are expecting a spike in infections as a result, and the rules around self-isolation on positive tests and wearing masks in most contexts remain. But Ireland has had one of the longest lockdowns in Europe, and one of the best vaccination rates. Both have paid off, but not without cost.

It is not clear to me that low incremental death rates are due to lockdowns (or, for that matter vaccination rates). Balkans had low rates with no lockdowns (and vaccination rates of under 35% throughout last summer). I am not claiming that your statement is wrong, just that the causal relationship is not at all clear to me. It is probably much easier to show for vax rates, but lockdowns -- I have not seen a convinci…

Canada and the U.S. might be a better comparison (particularly prior to vaccination, since the US has a notably lower vaccination rate). Canada largely had stricter lockdowns than the US and had about a third of the death rate. The populations aren't identical but fairly comparable, and the most notable differences in 2020 were degree of restrictions, along with better support for people unable to work due to COVID in Canada.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#80

Post by [deleted] »

prohobo wrote: post #56
lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is mostly unvaccinated people choosing to not get vaccinated, which people have lost patience for, and I cannot blame them.

Stop with this shit. It's not true. Most people in the hospitals for Covid are vaccinated. This is not an indictment against the vaccines, they prevent hospitalization, but the sheer number of vaccinated people still means they're the majority in the hospitals and ICUs, and the unvaccinated are a minority across the board. If you disagree with this statement, then here's hard proof: See page 7 of this UK report (late…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN