Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm' • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by 80386 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 7:20 PM UTC

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.

> 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.

One year, not two.

There was never any hope of containing COVID. It was endemic by the end of 2019. Individual countries had a chance of avoiding it with border controls that no Western country has the political will to implement - but the will to implement an indefinite policy of sakoku no longer exists anywhere. Since COVID was globally endemic before official sources even acknowledged human-to-human transmission, there was never any hope of not taking the bullet eventually - although in theory "eventually" means "until the next Commodore Perry".

A reasonable strategy would be to slow the spread of the virus to study vaccines, treatment protocols, and the possibility of long-term sequelae, and to build medical capacity, and then, at some point, declare good-enough preliminary results and (modulo medical capacity concerns) let it rip. Letting it rip while there are still such vast unknown unknowns is irresponsible and only potentially justifiable in hindsight - Anders Tegnell looks good now, but it could've been a lot worse.

But the propaganda machine can't turn on a dime, so the measures lasted much longer than they had any reason to, at least in the parts of the "Free World" that believe in respecting established authority qua established authority.

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

#342

Post by biorach » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

smitty1e wrote: post #325

biorach wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The horrifying precedent is small numbers of people who do not always stand for election making highly consequential decisions for large numbers of people. Nothing new there, beaurocrats and public health officials have long had the power to make highly consequential decisions for large numbers of people. Yes we could do with some debate about the power they exercise and about how to handle the next pandemic, and th…

> Nothing new there, beaurocrats and public health officials have long had the power to make highly consequential decisions for large numbers of people. I'll yield on the kind, but the degree with the Covid is off the charts for peacetime action. Was this wise? Were the across-the-board outcomes worth it? Those who made the decisions may be biased in their reflections on the matter.

> but the degree with the Covid is off the charts for peacetime action.

Actually, no. This is exactly the level of heavy handed, indiscriminate beaurocratic/government control that poorer people have always had to deal with - see for example how large scale city planning has tended to distribute its most disruptive consequences among the poorest neighbourhoods, or how public health systems have judged most harshly and intruded most forcefully into the lives of the poorest.

So again, nothing new. The only new thing is that middle class and wealthy people - such as you and I - suddenly experience this and react in shock.

> Were the across-the-board outcomes worth it?

Lives saved, lives disrupted, jobs lost... I don't know.It's a complex calculus, requiring a dispassionate and objective inquiry, which you clearly are not in a position to make

> Those who made the decisions may be biased in their reflections on the matter

Whatever

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

#343

Post by Graffur » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 7:49 PM UTC

lljk_kennedy wrote: post #291

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 unvacc…

Off the top of my head.. Mask advice at the start, deploying the police to stop anyone going further than 2km from their home for one. Shutting down outdoor public spaces for another. No scientific backing on lots of decisions made for another. Media controlled propaganda throughout (this one is debatable I guess). Keeping restrictions in place for inappropriate lengths of time - e.g. could have opened up at times last year, Merrion Gate, confusing and contradicting advice to the public after nearly every announcement, covid cert delays, closing off sections of shops - you could go to dealz and buy enough sugar to become diabetic but you couldn't buy some clothes in the same shop if you wanted.

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

#344

Post by encryptluks2 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 7:51 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #337

encryptluks2 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for one you are quoting the CDC which is not who approves vaccines. https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/coro... > The Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine is authorized to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in individuals 18 years of age and older. https://web.archive.org/web/20211103065325/https://www.fda.g... > The vaccine…

I linked to the FDA, too, since I knew you either hadn’t read or understood the documents someone else summarized for you. The part you quoted confirms that: note the distinction between the disease and the virus which causes it. Everyone knew that vaccinated people could still spread, but it takes longer to get data quantifying exactly how much and since the data showed very high efficacy against serious cases there…

Everyone knew? I mean I can send videos if you'd like of Biden and left-wing politicians saying the vaccine would prevent you from getting it.

Also, prevention of the disease would mean that people are asymptomatic and/or that they aren't getting COVID. Hospitals in many areas are publishing data showing majority of people there for COVID are vaxxed. So much for prevention of the disease.

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

#345

Post by encryptluks2 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 7:54 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #338

encryptluks2 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The applications specifically said that they are for prevention.

Prevention of the disease, not just spread.

People that are vaxxed are still getting the disease.

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

#346

Post by biorach » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 7:55 PM UTC

rob_c wrote: post #318

biorach wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evolutionary pressures that can lead to some diseases becoming less lethal and more transmissible over time are actually well researched and modelled, and has happened many times. That this could happen with Covid has been quietly mentioned in scientific publications over the last 2 years

The transmissible factor being genetically favoured is a no brained, but frankly given 99.9% of cases did not result in death the morbidity of covid is arguably already very low, why should it favour a decrease over developing new symptoms likely to increase transmission such as stability in different environments (there is clearly a seasonal effect in the West and the virus would be more contagious is stable in the…

To address just one of the many many poorly thought out points you made... This is not the 4th strain. There have been an uncountable number of mutations, and many strains (omicron is not the 4th letter in the Greek alphabet - there have been other named strains that didn't spread) This is the strain that spread like wildfire because it had evolved traits that allowed it to spread faster that all the other traits. The number of mutations is not important, the effect of the mutations is all that matters.

I don't think you have a good grasp of the basics of the mechanics of evolutionary selection, epidemiology or whatever. Maybe spend some time brushing up on the basics of the science before starting speculation on the why's and wherefore - stuff that appears suspicious to you now is actually a logical result of natural processes

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

#347

Post by acdha » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 7:56 PM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #344

acdha wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I linked to the FDA, too, since I knew you either hadn’t read or understood the documents someone else summarized for you. The part you quoted confirms that: note the distinction between the disease and the virus which causes it. Everyone knew that vaccinated people could still spread, but it takes longer to get data quantifying exactly how much and since the data showed very high efficacy against serious cases there…

Everyone knew? I mean I can send videos if you'd like of Biden and left-wing politicians saying the vaccine would prevent you from getting it. Also, prevention of the disease would mean that people are asymptomatic and/or that they aren't getting COVID. Hospitals in many areas are publishing data showing majority of people there for COVID are vaxxed. So much for prevention of the disease.

> Everyone knew? I mean I can send videos if you'd like of Biden and left-wing politicians saying the vaccine would prevent you from getting it.

If you were paying attention, note the difference between saying it will prevent all retransmission versus reducing it, which is what happened. Also, try to compare what actual medical experts said as opposed to the political entertainers whose talking points you're repeating. The actual medical experts were quite clear on this, and Biden has been pretty clear that breakthrough infections are possible — hence the interest in masks to prevent spread and vaccination to mitigate the damage for the people who we know statistically will catch it.

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

#348

Post by rsfern » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #335

rsfern wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not correct, the clinical trials explicitly measured symptomatic disease and not transmission e.g. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04470427

The applications specifically said that they are for prevention.

The moderna application clearly distinguishes between Covid-19 (symptomatic disease) and SARS-CoV-2 infection, as the sibling comment says.

> On November 30, 2020, ModernaTX (the Sponsor, also referred to as Moderna) submitted an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) request to FDA for an investigational COVID-19 vaccine (mRNA-1273) intended to prevent COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

https://www.fda.gov/media/144673/download

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

#349

Post by acdha » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #345

acdha wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prevention of the disease, not just spread.

People that are vaxxed are still getting the disease.

At a lower rate and with far less severity, which is exactly what we expected based on the initial data. Omicron's arrival means that more people are getting sick but when they do, it's still considerably less severe — which is good because Omicron is sending more people to the hospital even though it's ~40-50% less likely to do so compared to Delta.

I realize that you don't want to admit having been so wrong about this for so long but the evidence is very clear that the vaccines are safe and effective:

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#covidnet-hospitali...

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

#350

Post by throwaway6734 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 8:11 PM UTC

dham wrote: post #316

throwaway6734 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it is still an indirect concern because the unvaccinated are taking up hospital resources that I might need. The solution to this is to bump the unvaccinated to the lowest priority of hospitals. If beds are full they should be removed from the hospital.

Sure sounds good, let's do that with obese people too. Let's see, no need to treat lung cancer for people who smoked anymore. I think we just give a check list to doctors and let them decide on who to treat based on decisions someone has made in their life. Good idea. I'm on board

In general, yes. Those specific cases have much more difficult solutions than getting a few shots