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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'

#291

Post by lljk_kennedy »

Graffur wrote: post #46

The headline doesn't capture the remaining restrictions (although the article does). Masks are still required in shops, taxis, buses, trains. It's unclear for takeaway restaurants and chippers. All staff in those places will still need to wear masks. I assume bar and restaurant staff will also need to wear masks. So really, the 8pm curfew on hospitality has been lifted but that was always silly in the first place. Wh…

What failures?

I’m pretty proud of our overall response as a nation, apart for the anti-mask loonies. Most of us did what was asked, and as a national policy we (mostly) followed the medical and scientific advice, with obvious compromises for economic, educational and social factors. And here we are now, having mostly gotten through it without massive loss of life, without overloading the hospitals (apart from unvaccinated towards the end) and we’re removing the restrictions.

Feels good.

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

#292

Post by Kiro »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #182

What COVID-19 has taught me is people really have different levels of risk tolerance. I'm realizing I am very risk prone. Omicron never scared me and I got it. It was so mild, I would have thought I was hung over if I didn't have a home test. On the other hand we had a guest visit us from SF who really hasn't left his apartment during the whole pandemic from being terrified of the virus. His personality has changed f…

I've also become a recluse but I love it and have never been happier.

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

#293

Post by djrogers »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #75
akmarinov wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> more deaths are occurring per capita in 0-14 year olds.

Citation please? Current CDC data don’t show enough deaths in that age range to be statistically significant, let alone provide that conclusion.

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

#294

Post by bryanlarsen »

scop wrote: post #68
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.

1. This isn’t the same virus as at the start of the pandemic. 2. There is a treatment protocol for COVID, unlike at the start of the pandemic. 3. There are now vaccines. There is now a large portion of the population that has vaccine immunity. 4. There is now a large portion of the population that has natural immunity. 5. It should be abundantly clear that case counts is no longer a meaningful metric. 6. Covid is a d…

> 8. It should be clear that universally containing an aerosol virus like COVID is impossible. What is possible is targeted containment, I.e. keeping nursing homes under more precautions.

China has done it for pre-omicron variants, so it is possible. You and I are not willing to accept the restrictions necessary to do it and that's fine, but you cannot say it is impossible.

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

#295

Post by IgorPartola »

bequanna wrote: post #287
IgorPartola wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youngest kids aren’t eligible for vaccinations yet, are they? Sure they are in a lower risk group but if you have a 3 year old you likely don’t want all restrictions lifted quite yet.

Unless your toddler has some serious co-morbidities they are in a super low risk group if they contract. The number of hospitalizations/deaths under age 18 are incredibly small.

Two things. First, low != zero. Second, it isn’t always about taking the most pragmatic approach but the most humanitarian one.

People during this whole pandemic have been very cavalier with putting others at risk to not get inconvenienced. “Your kid probably won’t die” is not a winning argument.

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

#296

Post by jseban »

Ekaros wrote: post #170
solididiot wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the new normal. Either open/close as soon as a more dangerous variant comes along (can happen with most of the Earth population unvaccinated). Or just let it be and get used to health system being on its knees on peak seasons and more vulnerable/unvaccinated dying of.

Also accept the reality that hospitals being at capacity is the normal and not a anomaly. Just part of our hyper-optimized JIT economy. Near 100% utilization rate has been reality at flu-seasons for long time. And economically it is just not realistic in general to keep excess capacity.

Yeah according to news headlines health care have been overwhelmed for as long as I can remember. Population increases as well. Obviously the solution is to increase capacity, not to ban dancing, lol

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

#297

Post by lljk_kennedy »

drclau wrote: post #216
messe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Strange timing, with Omicron going through the population like wildfire. Maybe they are accepting they can’t fight Omicron? It's having very little impact on our hospitalization rates, despite massive jumps in overall case numbers. The main aim of the restrictions was to prevent the health service from becoming overrun (especially over christmas when they were already strained), and it's been deemed no longer neces…

That’s great to hear. Are you aware of any data on vaccinated vs unvaccinated hospitalizations for Ireland? If so, can you share please?

Some good data here: https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronav...

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

#299

Post by version_five »

scop wrote: post #68
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.

1. This isn’t the same virus as at the start of the pandemic. 2. There is a treatment protocol for COVID, unlike at the start of the pandemic. 3. There are now vaccines. There is now a large portion of the population that has vaccine immunity. 4. There is now a large portion of the population that has natural immunity. 5. It should be abundantly clear that case counts is no longer a meaningful metric. 6. Covid is a d…

Please run for office wherever you are. We need a lot more common sense like this in the discussion. I fear many places have taken the opposite approach where instead of making it clear why restrictions need to end, people keep focusing on impossible to resolve edges cases as reasons we need to obsess over covid forever

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

#300

Post by crateless »

jamps wrote: post #256
maxerickson wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccinated people suffer much less from a course of infection than unvaccinated, in all age groups. Not necessarily 'long covid' stuff, just the basic injury that comes from the illness. I sure don't want to lose my sense of smell. Even in young children, the consequences of infection appear to be worse statistically than the consequences of vaccination. It's of course not all that well understood yet, but for exampl…

My point here was death. The fact that there is no life threatening disease for 0-45yo on a statistical level in Europe. Death for this age group is lower than it was in 2017. > Vaccinated people suffer much less from a course of infection than unvaccinated, in all age groups. I don't know how you can measure that. And that's not how these vaccines have been sold. They were supposed to have 95% efficacy at lowering r…

Mortality rate (p.50) and hospital admissions (p.44) muddy the picture quite considerably. Would love to see similar figures for other countries in Europe.
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