Corona Virus

[TerenureJim]

Sounds mad but then so is having inter county and club GAA when you can't go for a coffee at your moms or socialise a toddler at play dates.

The GAA suspended all club leagues and championships last week.
Only inter county games are going ahead - is that any madder than having Pro14, Heinken Cup and international rugby games?

Professional sport is a job, not saying inter county aren't elite or equivalent to pros but they don't need to play to pay the mortgage, GAA is important possibly vital culturally but then so is Christmas. Its an amateur sport where players go back to the day job Monday to Friday. Is an inter county player is a teacher, garda or nurse is it right that he crosses county borders to play a contact sport for his hobby (don't mean that in a hard way) during a pandemic possibly picks it up at the game is asymptomatic then goes to work?

[heno]

For those talking about herd immunity :

Genomic evidence for reinfection with SARS-CoV-2: a case study

Findings
The patient had two positive tests for SARS-CoV-2, the first on April 18, 2020, and the second on June 5, 2020, separated by two negative tests done during follow-up in May, 2020. Genomic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 showed genetically significant differences between each variant associated with each instance of infection. The second infection was symptomatically more severe than the first.

Interpretation
Genetic discordance of the two SARS-CoV-2 specimens was greater than could be accounted for by short-term in vivo evolution. These findings suggest that the patient was infected by SARS-CoV-2 on two separate occasions by a genetically distinct virus. Thus, previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2 might not guarantee total immunity in all cases. All individuals, whether previously diagnosed with COVID-19 or not, should take identical precautions to avoid infection with SARS-CoV-2. The implications of reinfections could be relevant for vaccine development and application.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lani ... 7/fulltext



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This could obviously have a major impact on any plan for Herd Immunity.
Is there any information as to whether or not the vaccines currently on trial can address both strains given that the fact that there are at least two strains has been known for quite a while, as far back as March or earlier even IIRC?

I think there are many strains defined now. Maybe in the teens?
I'm no expert, but depending on the type of vaccine, you can have some that are built around the scaffold of the virus, so will be much more broad spectrum than the human body's response to a specific infection. So it's not it's not something to lose all hope over. But it's still not great.

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[paddyor]

Lvl 5 for 6 weeks, what a sh!t show. Haven't been this angry at a goverment since the bank bailout.

[ronk]

Lvl 5 for 6 weeks, what a sh!t show. Haven't been this angry at a goverment since the bank bailout.

Why?

[Oldschool]

Lvl 5 for 6 weeks, what a sh!t show. Haven't been this angry at a goverment since the bank bailout.

Why?

What do you think the government should have done?

[paddyor]

Lvl 5 for 6 weeks, what a sh!t show. Haven't been this angry at a goverment since the bank bailout.

Why?

WHere to start?

Made a balls of the TAT system. Didn't make any kind of plan for an alternative to rolling lockouts(this will likely be the first for the next 6 months). I think they've given NPHET way too much leeway to push their agenda. There's no evidence to support 5km limit but hey. There's no evidence that shops etc are vetors for the disease but we have to close them too. In fact we can trace most of the current outbreak to communion gatherings and a few county championship finals but lets just balme everything else. I'm sick of the daily doom press confference. Sick of every hour of the day being interrupted by Covid-19 be a radio ad(I just switch them off), a news bulleting or some TV show gleefully waffling about the new normal. I don't think this thing is the plague but we're treating it like is. Slovakia (population 5.4m) is amking a plan to test everyone in the country in the space of a month to track and isolate outbreaks. This is beyond the wit of NPHET whose plan for the next 6 months is to shutter everything until theres a vaccine.

[ronk]

I think the bank guarantee was a mistake and it worried me at the time.

Corona virus is on the rise. They've been raising restriction levels and telling people they are going to raise then further if it keeps accelerating.

They're trying to balance restrictions against disruptions and while I dont think they have shown strong control, I pretty much agree with the approach to keep schools open and allow televised sport.

[ronk]

Yeah contact tracing is and has been a shambles. I don't have a TV.

How could there be evidence to support a 5km limit? It's a blunt rule to stop congregating and to slow the geographical spread.

I haven't seen the evidence for communion and GAA games.

[paddyor]

I think the bank guarantee was a mistake and it worried me at the time.

Corona virus is on the rise. They've been raising restriction levels and telling people they are going to raise then further if it keeps accelerating.

They're trying to balance restrictions against disruptions and while I dont think they have shown strong control, I pretty much agree with the approach to keep schools open and allow televised sport.

Yeah, I've given that some thought. Like I said I was angry but I've kind of gone around the houses and arrived at the opinion that at twice the price it would have been cheap and worth it. But it wasn't just the guarantee. It was the way they'd managed to find themselves in that situation in the first place.

They're massively overstating the case. IF it took 2 symptoms to get a test in April and we were testing 6k a day on good days to get to 600 cases a day. Hospitalisations and ICU numbers were way higher than now. 80% of cases are asymptomatic now and we're doing 15k tests a day.

They're not rrying to anything ronk. That's the problem. They're just going to shut down everything whenever they sh!t their pants. This is it for the next months at lease with a week or 2 for Christmas.

Pro Rugby hasn't a hope if NPHEt get's it way and shuts down international travel(and that's what Holohan wanted back in June). That will be the next thing. My guess is they'll wait until after christmas and people have a had a chance to come home etc.

[paddyor]

Yeah contact tracing is and has been a shambles. I don't have a TV.

How could there be evidence to support a 5km limit? It's a blunt rule to stop congregating and to slow the geographical spread.

I haven't seen the evidence for communion and GAA games.

It doesn't stop congregating though. If you shut everything down you've already stopped the geoprahical spread. It's over kill because some hysterical curtain twitchers don't't understand that cameras obscure the distance between people.

Much of the early increasin cases was related to people gathering at communions. The recent spike in cases coincides with county championship day up and down the country. Meath, Cavan, Donegal, Galway, Clare, Cork and that's apparently what happened in NPHET. Of course NPHET could release the data but then they might be expected to act.

https://twitter.com/jenoconnell/status/ ... 78624?s=19

[Oldschool]

Lads would you just stop and think about TaT.
It has been totally oversold.
It doesn't work except in very specific, limited circumstances.
Acknowledging that fact would mean that the right analysis and solutions might be found.
Modelling also needs to be re-examined.
What are they modelling and what are hoping to obtain from them.
Modelling could be a very powerful tool if applied properly and the information is there.
For example the increase in numbers is being driven by the 15-45 age groups and in particular the 15-25.
What recommendations have NPHET made to the government that might curtail the 15-25 age group.
SWA is my guess.
What recommendations should they be considering.
Answers on a foolscap page please.
Or A4 if you are short of ideas.

[Oldschool]

The Banking guarantee was necessary.
NAMA was the real problem.
The worrying thing is that the Banks are going to have problems again and NAMA is still around.
Queue our next financial crisis after the COVID financial crisis.

[paddyor]

Paul Colgan
@paulcolgan
Ireland's lockdown shows just what a slender tight-rope Irish society and its economy now treads until a vaccine arrives.

It appears NPHET's acceptable threshold for lifting the most severe restrictions is a daily case count below 100 - which it models will happen by 6 weeks.
10:00 PM · Oct 19, 2020·Twitter for Android

That's the plan!

[Oldschool]

Paul Colgan
@paulcolgan
Ireland's lockdown shows just what a slender tight-rope Irish society and its economy now treads until a vaccine arrives.

It appears NPHET's acceptable threshold for lifting the most severe restrictions is a daily case count below 100 - which it models will happen by 6 weeks.
10:00 PM · Oct 19, 2020·Twitter for Android

That's the plan!

And blame TaT when we don't get to 100/day.
Very convenient.

[The Doc]

Yeah contact tracing is and has been a shambles. I don't have a TV.

How could there be evidence to support a 5km limit? It's a blunt rule to stop congregating and to slow the geographical spread.

I haven't seen the evidence for communion and GAA games.

It doesn't stop congregating though. If you shut everything down you've already stopped the geoprahical spread. It's over kill because some hysterical curtain twitchers don't't understand that cameras obscure the distance between people.

Much of the early increasin cases was related to people gathering at communions. The recent spike in cases coincides with county championship day up and down the country. Meath, Cavan, Donegal, Galway, Clare, Cork and that's apparently what happened in NPHET. Of course NPHET could release the data but then they might be expected to act.

https://twitter.com/jenoconnell/status/ ... 78624?s=19

It's not about the increase in cases or pictures of crowds... It's the increase in hospitalisations and putting a cap on that. And without a vaccine it will happen again when the rates increase.

And distance restrictions work because they are simple to understand and to implement. The current advisory regime of "try not to meet too many people" hasn't worked because people will always justify their own behaviour. Looking at general activity in town and in my local parks over the last few weeks wouldn't give the impression people were generally avoiding unnecessary interaction in day to day activity... Let alone the "baptisms and GAA games"

Contact tracing by definition can only hope to reduce the impact after someone has caught it. It isn't preventative. The only way to bring down rates is to reduce circulation. But when people don't isolate while waiting for tests or don't isolate after risky activity then TAT can't have an impact. And what I heard from medical and testing people were that significant numbers of people being contacted for test results were "out and about"

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[paddyor]

Yeah contact tracing is and has been a shambles. I don't have a TV.

How could there be evidence to support a 5km limit? It's a blunt rule to stop congregating and to slow the geographical spread.

I haven't seen the evidence for communion and GAA games.

It doesn't stop congregating though. If you shut everything down you've already stopped the geoprahical spread. It's over kill because some hysterical curtain twitchers don't't understand that cameras obscure the distance between people.

Much of the early increasin cases was related to people gathering at communions. The recent spike in cases coincides with county championship day up and down the country. Meath, Cavan, Donegal, Galway, Clare, Cork and that's apparently what happened in NPHET. Of course NPHET could release the data but then they might be expected to act.

https://twitter.com/jenoconnell/status/ ... 78624?s=19

It's not about the increase in cases or pictures of crowds... It's the increase in hospitalisations and putting a cap on that. And without a vaccine it will happen again when the rates increase.

And distance restrictions work because they are simple to understand and to implement. The current advisory regime of "try not to meet too many people" hasn't worked because people will always justify their own behaviour. Looking at general activity in town and in my local parks over the last few weeks wouldn't give the impression people were generally avoiding unnecessary interaction in day to day activity... Let alone the "baptisms and GAA games"

Contact tracing by definition can only hope to reduce the impact after someone has caught it. It isn't preventative. The only way to bring down rates is to reduce circulation. But when people don't isolate while waiting for tests or don't isolate after risky activity then TAT can't have an impact. And what I heard from medical and testing people were that significant numbers of people being contacted for test results were "out and about"

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It was the increase in cases that was used to justify the policy of rolling lockdowns. They're using cases as the parameter.

Paul Colgan
@paulcolgan
Ireland's lockdown shows just what a slender tight-rope Irish society and its economy now treads until a vaccine arrives.

It appears NPHET's acceptable threshold for lifting the most severe restrictions is a daily case count below 100 - which it models will happen by 6 weeks.
10:00 PM · Oct 19, 2020·Twitter for Android

And they're using 100 cases as the parameter. Not hospitalisations.


And yes I know it's about hospitalisations which btw are nowhere near the same level as 1k cases in April. I think it was Nolan who argued that there could be 400 by the end of OCtober and that might overwhelm the health system. Which is nonsense because 1) the numbers don't support it & 2) 400 cases over a 2.5 week period won't overload the health service.

But there's nothing wrong with meeting people in the park and there's no evidence that retail is a big vector for the disease. It's rational to do that. This is what I mean hysteria. So what if people were meeting people in the park or doing some shopping. I'm going to break the restrictions multiple times to see my mother(which I think at one point they were advising against in all instances -I've kind of stopped paying attention now).

If you reduce the impact then it is by definition preventative. I'm aware of it's limitations. So why don't we switch to one of the fast turnaround antigen tests? There's an Irish company with a 15min turnaround time. The only wrinkle is it has a high rate of false positives. It doesn't have to be this way. They don't have to watch their messaging fail despite (saturation coverage) and throw their hands up. There's a load of northeastern universities in the US that use the antigen test to stay open and it's worked.

[paddyor]

[Oldschool]

If Truth was the first casualty of this new "emergency" then Science has been the second casualty.
Comment on TV this morning.
"It's not the government that has failed, it's the people"
There is some truth to that although I wouldn't be giving the government a free pass.
Got my flu jab yesterday and bumped into an old acquaintance.
Told me that barn parties are a major problem, upwards of 200 in attendance.
The things that bug me most about all of this is that things that needed to be changed haven't been changed.
1. Masks - Wear your mask Tony.
2. Information being made public is almost useless.
Individuals need to know what is the risk in their area on a daily basis.
3. A task force made up of mainly non medical people should have been set up in early March to plan and begin implementation of measures to come out of lockdown.
This is still badly needed and an internal government/dept group doesn't meet the needs.

It can still be a merry Christmas if you stock up in the off licence today.

[heno]

The answer machine has given the answer that most things outside the home are safe, so it's inside the home that's the problem. But he virus hasn't been hiding behind the sofa since March. So it's a case of garbage in garbage out. Thats because either people are not answering or giving false answers. Or maybe more likely, the questioners are not going back far enough in time. Either way, the only thing to do now is shut down, reset and hopefully learn the lessons and have a more fit for purpose test and trace for when we resume.
The real game changer isn't the vaccine but the 15min spit test. The hse are trialing it along side the swab test at the moment (ie same person tested by both).

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[Oldschool]

The answer machine has given the answer that most things outside the home are safe, so it's inside the home that's the problem. But he virus hasn't been hiding behind the sofa since March. So it's a case of garbage in garbage out. Thats because either people are not answering or giving false answers. Or maybe more likely, the questioners are not going back far enough in time. Either way, the only thing to do now is shut down, reset and hopefully learn the lessons and have a more fit for purpose test and trace for when we resume.
The real game changer isn't the vaccine but the 15min spit test. The hse are trialing it along side the swab test at the moment (ie same person tested by both).

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TaT isn't the answer, it's an aid no more.
Better use of the data they have available is what is needed.
This means profiling the super spreaders and then identifying them and that's where TaT should be focused.
Identify where the cases are occurring and why.
Prioritize action in those areas.
This means addressing weaknesses where possible.
The weapons that we have, masks, distancing, crowd control, hygiene and better ventilation to mention the most obvious ones.
Listening to the news once again TaT is the stick that is being used to do the beating.
It's about time that one of our so called experts came out and told the truth, it's not the be all and end all, not even close, especially at 1000 cases a day and given the lack of cooperation.
100k tests a week is a lot of testing but a lot of it is non discretionary.
The question has to be asked and answered is there a better way to spend the money.
Worth remembering there has always been question marks over the accuracy of test results.
A review of TaT is badly needed not least to identify what its limitations are.
Quote from the CMO.
"He described the scale of testing and tracing that is taking place in Ireland at the moment as "unprecedented" and "enormous"."
Message to Tony, does that not tell you something?
Message from Tony cases will be down to 100/day.
He should have added and pigs will be flying around pulling sleighs.