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

reuters.com

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

#91

Post by aurelianito »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #71
polote wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

These people also die from the flu and common cold. We cannot stop the world for them.

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

#92

Post by IAmGraydon »

fbrncci wrote: post #59
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.

Is Delta still dominant in the US? First time I am checking the US Covid stats in months, and it seems like both deaths and hospitalizations in the US are rising. The opposite is true for most of Europe, where omicron cases are rising exponentiallly, but deaths and hospitalizations are falling flat.

It’s definitely strange that there’s such a disparity, and I assume it’s because there are differences in what is considered a “Covid death” in the US vs elsewhere.

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

#93

Post by cletus »

To anyone confused about these reopenings, particularly in the US, it's actually pretty easy to understand:

1. Governments have decided that by now if you're not vaccinated it's by choice (which it is, barring actual medical conditions) it's by choice and the governments (as well as many people) have stopped caring;

2. The CDC's recent self-isolation has shown that given (1), the government cares more about keeping the economy going or has decided everyone is going to get Omicron anyway or both; and

3. The government has decided (and probably modeled) that hospitals might strain under the load but won't collapse as was a much bigger risk 1-2 years ago.

The statistics are pretty stark on this. In the US 2000+ people still die of Covid every day, 90-95% of those are unvaccinated and it feels like the government and people in general have lost patience with people who at this point are simply choosing to die.

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

#94

Post by lambdaba »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #79
ptero wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Canada has 3+ years higher life expectancy than the US, that implies better overall health. Also lower obesity rates (29.4% vs 36.2%). Source: https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/canada.united-st...

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

#95

Post by lotsofpulp »

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…

That is a good point, but I would like to know hospital length of stay for unvaccinated vs vaccinated, as a proxy for how many resources / man hours of hospital staff they are taking up. A single unvaccinated ICU patient could be taking 10x the resources is a non ICU patient.

The data on page 7 also shows hospitalization is overwhelmingly for populations aged 60+ and up. Which is unfortunate, but I think people, parents especially, are having to decide between tradeoffs of prioritizing elderly versus benefits kids get from ending restrictions.

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

#96

Post by aurelianito »

anovikov wrote: post #40
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.

Because now there are no restrictions to speak of left and it can't go much worse. No ground for apocalyptic scenarios anymore. Also, it's entirely up to people themselves if they want to be protected or not: Omicron is so transmissive, it doesn't matter for transmission if people are vaccinated or not - whatever impact it has on transmission is of little consequence - everyone is going to get infected, anyway (maybe…

In order for that to be true, unvaccinated people should not be hospitalized.

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

#97

Post by ryanbrunner »

version_five wrote: post #35
emteycz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd argue a lot of people have already gone crazy and will do anything to avoid going back to normal and letting people live their lives. The obsession with the need for a "new normal" amongst some is really terrifying. There needs to be some targeted campaign to "deprogram" the people that have become obsessed with covid and make them move on. I'm serious about this, if we just pretend it will get better on it's own…

People have different situations. I'm severely immunocomprimised - while I get and understand that the world can't remain locked down indefinitely for a small segment of the population, I'm absolutely going to advocate for my own survival, and that doesn't make me "crazy" or that I need "deprogramming". It's not irrational to not want widespread transmission of a virus that has a 20% CFR for people like me.

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

#98

Post by orobinson »

nkrisc wrote: post #42
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.

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.

That's because the chances of serious illness with Covid in under 5s is extremely small. Here in the UK nobody under 12 has been vaccinated except those who are extremely vulnerable. The data for England[0] puts the death rate within 28 days of a positive test in the 0-4 age group at 0.8 per 100,000. I believe there are around 3 million children in that age group in the UK so that works out as 24 deaths in that age group in the UK throughout the entire pandemic. Obviously that's a tragic number and awful for the affected families, but at the same time you have to put the risk to your children in perspective for your own sanity.

My kids are 2 and 5 - they've both had Covid at least once, possibly twice and it was indistinguishable from all the other colds they've had since the pandemic hit.

[0] https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths?areaType=nati...

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

#100

Post by refurb »

Mizza wrote: post #26
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.

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.

For the most part we did stumble our way to this point, but nobody could predict the outcome.

After two years and now 4 shots being discussed it’s clearly apparent:1) people will still get infected, 2) despite the lower risk of death with vaccines, plenty will still die, 3) we can’t keep borrowing money and giving to people when we shutdown their businesses.

And I feel like the protests in Australia, Canada, US, Europe are making it pretty clear people aren’t willing to make major sacrifices for another year, or two or three.

Far smarter to pretend this was the plan all along then watch people blatantly disregard your rules.

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