@Lisa Rowe: you can do that but if a person chooses not to look and the mountain of information why we need to stay in lock down then what are they other than ignorant? They are actually wilfully ignorant which most call stupid

@Craic_a_tower: Until what point do you think we should? Not to start a debate, I’m struggling myself to see at what point we can think of lifting some. I believe some do need to be lifted relatively soon though but majority should remain

@Craic_a_tower: This….

@Niamh McKinney: You’re right Niamh, they will have to at some point. They should have their homework done at this stage and be able to identify which sectors to start with. Peoples mental health has to be considered. Not just with regards to the restrictions, but also what what their daily lives will become after restrictions are eased/lifted.

@Logan Shepherd: I feel a lot of people think we should remain in lockdown until the virus is gone (impossible, will never happen) or until a vaccine, which is just not sustainable, and although it’s a very selfless thought to do that, it really, truly is and it’s admirable that people are willing to make that sacrifice, it’s just not realistic.

@Niamh McKinney: This is from your point of view and where your priorities lie right now, people prioritise differently, it’s an age thing, so what’s really important to you right now may have mattered to someone else 20 years ago but now would be so trivial,
there is however an element of just having to make sacrifices in all of this because this is not just about you or me or how we feel, it’s about an illness we know very little about and the long term effects of this illness, I hear what your saying and a lockdown cannot stay in place indefinitely, there are at present over 80 countries working developing a vaccine, remdesivir, an anti viral drug is looking good, new testing methods will deliver quicker results, this is not forever.

I have and will continue to conform with the lockdown , not just in the interest of my own health but the health of others. I’m not interested in bashing people that are doing the best with the information and resources they have( even though mistakes have been made I would say), but we need some light at the end of the tunnel. Every other country are producing some sort of playbook on how we can start gradually lifting ( emphasise gradual) the lockdown. Can we open a hardware store, can we go to a park that’s say 4 miles, can we open restaurants with say 1/2 capacity . Just think out loud and not championing any of these ideas before I’m lambasted. I would like to see what they are thinking rather than just a daily” we are working on a plan” which loosely translates “ we don’t know”.

@Lisa Rowe: there are too many reasons to explain how ignorant and stupid this comment is.

@John fitzpatrick: basically let the people know if we are just firefighting or planning. I’m here for the long haul and whatever is decided to keep people healthy, I’ll go with to the letter of the law but like everyone, I’d like to see a little light or at least some sort of plan( even if that plan changes through necessity) sick and tired of the end is nigh and constant negativity.

@Aaron O’Leary: simple answer not now or for 2 months more at least. Then reassess. There is nothing to debate unless you ignore what is going on and the information we have. New way of living will be needed

Call it whatever way. I’m in favour of restrictions. The only problem is that the economic fallout of this is going to be unlike anything we’ve seen before. The government spending and lack of income don’t and can’t add up. It’s no different to a household. Spend more than you earn and you’ll be in trouble. I can see a decade of austerity. Unless the EU write a cheque. No bonds or sh!te like that. A cheque.

@Craic_a_tower: Yeah I can’t see the government adding 2 more months to this, we have flattened it as per the CMO and the R0 is below 1. Although I do agree with you, I just can’t see it happening but that’s me

@John fitzpatrick: tell us your plans for the unknown. Life isn’t like stories where everything fits together. Everybody would like to know but there is no way to know.

@Craic_a_tower: The again, no one predicted lockdowns really, so who knows?

@Aaron O’Leary: so don’t insist on an answer when the answer remains the same for the same reasons. Yes lovely to know but just because you want to know and don’t like it doesn’t change the facts. We don’t know

@Philip King ⚡️: two comments and not a single reason provided.

Which ultimately shows the flimsiness of your argument as you have failed to address the point of the negative impact caused by the lockdown.

Niamh said lift restrictions, not abolish completely.

You could have easily cited Ireland’s increased death rate and attempt to flatten the curve in order to relieve hospitals.

This is the type of attitude that enables dictators to assume control of populations – the shutting down of debate and complete subordination.

@Craic_a_tower: I’m not insisting on an answer, I gave an opinion, like you have. You cited “based on the information we know” I expressed an opinion on based on the information we have so far, that you ignored.

Learn the difference between expressing fact and opinion and then you should feel comfortable coming back and running your mouth again.

@Aaron O’Leary: True, and for all our good intentions, people won’t stay on the same page. It’s human nature. However lifting restrictions without a structured plan and coping mechanisms for unknowns would be bad. There is a possibility of a second wave when restrictions are lifted. Hospitals seem to be coping at the moment but the number of healthcare workers testing positive is growing. Consider viral load for healthcare workers as well. Lots to consider and tough decisions to be made.

@Logan Shepherd: Yes, exactly. Theres so much to consider, that it’s near impossible to make a full proof roadmap for lifting them. As it stands the lockdown is better than no lockdown, the next task is working out what can be lifted, what can’t be

@milton friedman: just listen to the experts. Everything else is just an opinion…

@Philip King ⚡️: ^ this is probably the most sensible comment really

@Craic_a_tower: You can’t give your opinion on saying “we need to keep the lockdown in place” which I already stated I agree with and then get pissy and insist that I’m touting my opinion as fact, which I’m not.

Stop insisting on an answer when we don’t know okay: “you can do that but if a person chooses not to look and the mountain of information why we need to stay in lock down” <- thats you insisting on an answer

@Aaron O’Leary: exactly. People have started to believe we need to stay in lockdown until the virus magically disappears or until we have a cure/vaccine (which should take years to develop if you want it to actually be safe). Lockdown was put in place to ‘flatten the curve’ which has now been achieved. If they now extend lockdown and lift no restrictions we will need to be asking why. But I am afraid too few people are asking questions. I’m afraid people are becoming targets of abuse if they dare question lockdown or ask about it being lifted. Have we abandoned critical thinking altogether?

@Philip King ⚡️: *too

@Philip King ⚡️: So what exactly is the plan? There doesn’t seem to be one. They should have locked down the old and high risk but instead were all susceptible to the disease now.
How can they ease restrictions without a surge in deaths?

@Aaron O’Leary: We have 160 elected representatives and 3 caretaker ministers. They should have their homework done on as many possibilities as they can think of. We have to go forward with the lesser evil, be that continuing with or easing the restrictions. It’s not the restrictions that are wearing me down, it’s all the ifs, buts and maybes.

@Logan Shepherd: Nail on the head right there. Seriously it’s the lack of any clear direction that’s grating on me as well. It’s not about the actual next plan per say it’s about atleast getting some guidance from those who are meant to be guiding.

@Kate Flaherty: I will take that as a compliment :) am 34 and a mother of 5

@Aaron O’Leary: If the reproduction rate goes back above 1.6% then it’s back to the restrictions that we have now, that’s according to Professor Nolan…

@Francis Mc Carthy: I know, I’m not suggesting lifting them, even on another thread I mention keeping them longer if needs be. What I’m trying to say is that it is impossible to keep a lockdown going until a vaccine (according to the WHO, CMO, Health Minister and most experts)

@Francis Mc Carthy: sorry meant this thread I suggest keeping them longer

@Craic_a_tower: it’s not my plans, I’d like to know the government has a plan that goes past 2 weeks. I’m actually not running down how this has been handled, the opposite, but the lack of communication is getting to me. That’s all.

@Niamh McKinney: I think if you look at how long the effects of the lockdown took to flatten the curve you can see why they are cautious of lifting them. If they lifted restrictions today, they would be putting them back in place on Friday. If they lift them on May 5th, about two weeks after the curve flattened, we would have two or three weeks before new lockdown. If they leave it until May 21st, random date selection, it would buy another week maybe before lockdown was needed. If they can lower the cases overall to give themselves a lot of wiggle room in terms of capacity and then gradually lifting restrictions, one or two at a time with a period of two to three weeks between each reduction, they can see what works, or what changes lead to more cases than the reduction is worth.

@Rossa Crowe: the will be decided by the situation.
That’s the plan.

@Niamh McKinney: You look amazing, I have 20 years on you, and believe me it changes things, I have 3 kids, the eldest is 28, the youngest is 16, the only thing that doesn’t change is the instinct to survive..

@Niamh McKinney: The economy is screwed either way. Its not going to just bounce back if restrictions are lifted. Consumer confidence is gone. Everyone is expecting a second wave. Very few will spend money except on the essentials. Most will feel uncomfortable going to crowded places. Look at the states in America who didn’t lockdown, or did very late on, or Sweden for an example, their economies tanked at almost the same rate as the other American states or European countries respectively. For instance someone above mentioned opening a restaurant with 1/2 capacity, you could do that, they would run at a loss and go out of business anyway.

@John fitzpatrick: I think our best plan at the moment is to watch Spain and Germany and see how things play out there as they ease the protective measures. Learn from what happens there and act on that rather than planning blind. Also if Government announce a plan now and things change next week we’ll have the “See They Lied To Us” brigade out in force to undermine the progress we;re making.

@Niamh McKinney: I would think anybody losing their life would be the ultimate devastation.

@Francis Devenney: that brigade are there anyhow on every article. But agreed on the watch and wait. But still would like to see that they are actually planning as opposed to firefighting.

@Francis Mc Carthy: of course it will workout quarantine for travel

@Francis Mc Carthy: of course it will without quarantine for travel

@Craic_a_tower: where is that mountain of information I wonder…

@Nikolina Fiume: There is none, he is just ignoring the actual information that has been provided to us.

@Philip King ⚡️: Keeping up with experts is a full time job. First no masks, now masks. Some countries count all deaths with the virus, others only hospital deaths of the virus. Sweden has no lockdown. The daily death rate is not actually a report of the number of deaths occurring that day. BCG protects, vitamin d protects. When there is so much variation, it’s hard to know which experts to listen to!

@milton friedman: yes he’s a dope

@Kate Flaherty: could be for a lot longer than we think. As one doctor said the other day, we do not have vaccines for any of the Coronavirus’s so we may not get one for this either. It may be that we might get something that lessens the effects.

@Philip King ⚡️: is that your reply to everyone?

@Philip King ⚡️: It is advice based on the opinions of the experts that are being applied across the world – hence different opinions by different experts leading to some different approaches and decisions on restrictions. I find your statements incredibly ignorant and condescending to those with very valid points. And yes, I’m in the medical profession.
I agree with the medical expert, Dr. Marcus De Brun of the IMC in everything he said – that the approach to Covid-19 by the government and CMO was mis-managed.
At some point, they will gradually lift restrictions out of necessity, and it will be soon-ish – that has been acknowledged already by the experts in all fields. Their opinion and everchanging understanding will decide when.

@Niamh McKinney: Why? Do you need to urgently run to a hairdresser to cover your greys or something?

@Philip King ⚡️: The emergency covid payment is temporary. Once that dries up you may change your tune

@Scarletrose: It’s not that, to be fair Simon Harris did say that when the R0 rate is below 1 they can start looking at relaxing some restrictions. It’s below 1 now.

@Philip King ⚡️: well let’s summarise the goverments approach so far.
1) lock down a little too late and only because most other countries are doing it.
2) produce soundbites about tough decisions and we’re all in this together BS.

They have no plan and now no matter what they do there will be a wave of deaths once any of the restrictions are lifted which by their logic will justify more restrictions.
If they were on 350 a week we’d be back to work already.

@NotMyIreland: That’s the whole point – Lockdowns may keep the hospitals functioning g but they don’t change the end result and actually exasperate the problem further.

@Niamh McKinney: especially for our mental health those living on their own. Humans are social animals need to mix with others even in the circumstances we are on.

@Philip King ⚡️: I agree with her, I have been following the restrictions and I work in a hospital, my daughter is a doctor in a hospital with the most Covid patients in the country, but we need a little ease up on the restrictions on May 5th, otherwise people will see no hope and will do stupid stuff, also the economy will be completely fu&cked for a very long time.

@Rossa Crowe: If you look at Sweden who had no lockdown they are also expecting GDP growth of -7.1%. Considering we are an exposed economy anyway our -10.5% is similar to what we would have expected without a lockdown.

@Craic_a_tower: and if the economy tanks completely how are they going to pay for the hospitals and Garda etc?

@Niamh McKinney: what age are you?

@Niamh McKinney: understand where your coming from and I want some of the restrictions lifted, I haven’t been able to see my son in 4 weeks cause I’m working everyday with the public, but we have to take it little by little, we don’t want a huge second wave and back to square one, we just have to trust the paid experts

@Niamh McKinney: you’re the only one thinking logically. I am in healthcare and it’s devastating but people think this is going to disappear it’s not. We had no covid yday into ICU not one. So we’ve flattened the curve so much that when we do lift restriction the second surge will come faster, then the third and fourth. Again, people think this virus will disappear, it won’t. It’s becoming apparent that much like the common cold it’s mutating. It could be years before we get a vaccine. The only reason we are in lockdown is to stop the complete implosion of the HSE. When the second and third wave comes the government have the extra beds in private hospitals which they didn’t have 5 weeks ago.

@Niamh McKinney: I think plenty of people out there can see it, just not those commenting on the Journal it seems.

@Kate Flaherty: I don’t think their guideline is R0 <= 0. It's that R is sustainable and decreasing, at least the public guideline is which they announced. It would be almost impossible to get R0 <= 0 with such an infectious disease

@Kate Flaherty: from what I can find it’s:

1.Disease transmission is under control

2. Health systems are able to “detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact”

3. Hot spot risks are minimized in vulnerable places, such as nursing homes

4. Schools, workplaces and other essential places have established preventive measures

5. The risk of importing new cases “can be managed”

6. Communities are fully educated, engaged and empowered to live under a new normal

@Aaron O’Leary: I’m open to correction here, but that’s what I understood from the interview, we could then start seriously looking at lifting restrictions all the while making sure our icu units are looking good for any sort of a re-emergence of the infection.

@Kate Flaherty: Yeah likewise, I’m open to correction as well. That’s all I could find, but public facing guidelines and internal guidelines could very well be different.

@Aaron O’Leary: Number 2 is the important one Aaron, again according to WHO guidelines improved swift accurate testing is needed along with improved contact tracing, the testing is still not up to par here.

@Kate Flaherty: Nope, not even close up to par. Personally, I don’t think we will be able to get it up to par really

@Niamh McKinney: Sure some are generally fearful and caring but I would hazard a guess that the majority just happily take the 350 euro a week, draining the economy all the while masking it with virtue signalling about how noble and helpful they are to society hiding their laziness on the couch. Getting rid of or reducing state benefits can be the only solution.

@Jay: good idea. Starve people and force them to get out looking for work. I know there may be an unemployment rate of over 20 Percent. All the better. More competition for jobs and lower wages.

@Jay: a very long spell on welfare would do you the world of good sonny.

@Ben Dunne: We are 9th in the world for deaths per capita. That’s appallingly bad

@tom forde: the real question is how have the public handled this outbreak.
It’s the people that didn’t listen.
Even as the government shut things down the people didn’t listen.

@JimmyMc: but everyone is playing a blinder ………

@Philip King ⚡️: exactly Philip, how about we blame the turds that went to Cheltenham instead of blaming the government stopping them, the greedy publicans that stayed open and the selfish clowns that drank in them, people out an about for takeaways when they didn’t need to be.

Every day on my FB feed is about pubs and restaurants starting to offer a collection service , all that does is encouraging people to leave their houses for food they could prepare at home. People can’t understand that just because you don’t have symptoms doesn’t mean you aren’t spreading it.

@Larkin About: same lie , different day. Tell me is it cut and paste or do you go to the bother of typing the same lie each day?

@John fitzpatrick: When you discount the tiny states, such as San Marino, that skew the figures, Ireland is 9th in deaths per capita. That’s the second time you have called that commenter a liar. You should have the decency to apologise. http://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

@John fitzpatrick: what’s untrue about it ?

7 cases 2 days ago in australia ? Now
Talking about eradication within their borders

More January arrivals than us , at 2.3million, 10,000 arrival flights in January ,

49flights direct flights a day from China including direct from Wuhan so Risk in early days was huge . 500k of asian students predominantly from China and Korea

The isolation doesn’t argument hold water , more people cross their borders than ours in January

We had a 6 week head start

Why are they so low? They Implemented mandatory enforced 14 day quarantine on arrival in hotels, we do leaflets and some half baked advice, along with large enforced fines and fail for SD breaches that they actually enforced

But continue to believe the PR if you choose it

@John fitzpatrick: BOT ALERT!!! BOT ALERT!!! BOT ALERT!!! Are you allowed work from home John, or do you still have to go to FG HQ??? ;)

@Diarmuid: Same yesterday. On one article he called 2 or 3 people liars when what they were posting was correct. Trying to shut down people posting facts.

@Diarmuid: But Ireland is also a ‘Tiny State’. Why would you remove some and not others? So in reality Ireland is 12th. Its still not good. I just don’t understand the logic of removing any states from the list?

@Sk19: Australia who’s outcomes, which you praise so much, used the isolation method, which doesn’t “hold water” with you, to achieve their results. So you want their results but not their method? Also worth remembering Australia had been more affected by both SARS1 and MERS, and so had experience in this type of thing, something we didn’t have.

@devils avacado: lame, lame lame. It becomes a lie when it’s over and over again proved wrong. Until every country reports the same way about deaths these stats are absolutely meaningless. This person, even though he’s proved wrong day after day spouts the same old BS just to show the government in a bad light. Now I don’t give a damn which party is in power as long as they are not left( that’s where my logic lies, not any one party) but if you want to call someone a bot, call the man with an historical figure as his picture that presses the same flawed logic each day to push his left driven agenda. But I am a signed up member of the ABU club so we conflict there.

@Diarmuid: simple answer, I’ll make even simpler. How can you compare the total Irish deaths to the total British deaths? They count them differently. If we took all the nursing home deaths out of our stats, we would go way down this so called list. This list is not a fact. It has been proven as an incorrect indicator. It’s a fabrication, hence an outright lie. To keep using false info to push your agenda is in my opinion a lie.

@NotMyIreland: Don’t be ridiculous. The Irish Republic has over 4,900,000 people. San marino has less than 34,000. Every person who dies in San Marino would be the same per capita as 148 dying here. Cop on.

@Larkin About: ok, I’ll relent. You just tell me how all the people above and below report their deaths. Is it all deaths or just hospitals. I’ll call it a fact when I know that. Until then it’s not a fact and the fact that you state it as fact is wrong over and over again . All that “fact” is , is the number of deaths “reported” per country and not actual deaths. Are you actually saying the UK is reporting all deaths? Looking forward to your response.

@John fitzpatrick: “I’ll call it a fact when I know that. Until then it’s not a fact”

What a dumb, arrogant, statement. Also, what makes you think people care what you choose to believe is a fact?

@Philip King ⚡️: Typical of a FG shill!

@John fitzpatrick: hahahaha what a dope. facts are facts whether it suits you to believe them or not

@NotMyIreland: you are reading it wrong / I worded it poorly

The isolation argument is what most people refer to when australia is brought up , i.e the in response is it’s an isolated country

That’s doesn’t hold water , more people cross their borders monthly than ours (NI aside) , and look at the january Chinese travel they had to deal with

@Larkin About: back at you. Now away you go and find a few more stats that you can call facts and then repeat it day after day for a few more weeks. You did not answer my question? Is this a report on reported deaths or actual deaths? If reported, you know you are wrong.

@We Love Katamari: but it’s not a fact. It’s a statistic on reported deaths per capita. Not actual deaths per capita. Therefore flawed. Wrong. Incorrect.

@xor: what?

@Diarmuid: China has 1,393,000,000 America 328,000,000 we are 0.35% of China’s population and 1.5% of America, San Marino are 0.69% of our population, so it is all relative. You still provide no reason for discounting the ‘tiny states’, which in relation to China, America, India and others.

@Sk19: Ah my bad, thought you were arguing against yourself, others above certainly are! Yeah I agree with the travel aspect. I’d say some of it is to do with the experience of dealing with previous outbreaks. Both SARS1 and MERS were far deadlier virus than this one so you can imagine they had prepared for this scenario so much better than us, or in fact Europe as a whole.

@NotMyIreland: ya sorry should have worded it better
There was only 1 SARS case in australia and zero Mers but yes proximity and amount of Chinese travel would have made them alert

But we had a 6 week head start , even now when it’s clear how effective their borders control is we allowe workers ( no isssue with the workers themselves ) in in quarantined , all arrivals citizens eu and no eu (assuming we don’t close borders to non citizens ) should be quarantined for 14 days

@Larkin About: how many times are you going to post this same comment .. most of these countries are only counting deaths in hospitals not overall.

@Larkin About: absolute nonsense. A lot of countries under reporting their figures, many behind us on the curve. We are doing really well in the overall scheme of things. It seems that the UK is under reporting it’s number by 41%. For a country that takes most of it’s cues from the UK when it comes to matters of culture and in some cases, govt policy, plus bearing in mind our very close trade and working relations with that country, multiply our numbers by 14 (population uplift) and compare to the UK. We could have been another UK, Spain or Italy.

@Sk19: spot on. I live in Australia and the federal and state governments also closed down both interstate borders and regional borders and have taken a strict stance on mandatory 14 day isolation on international arrivals into hotels. They’ve done this early to stem the flow as the predominant cases recorded are from overseas and cruise ships. This, and other measures such as test, trace, treat process has largely resulted in the relative success here. I haven’t seen the same strict restrictions on arrivals of people into Ireland which I really don’t understand? Why has this not happened?

@tom forde: what?

@Craic_a_tower: woodies and stores like it have better social distancing than shops I’ve been in.

@Craic_a_tower: some hardware stores in small towns sell food and are small garden centres as well, is it OK for them to open?

@Paul Power: only for essential items. Eg coal fuel etc

@Robbie Coogan: they are selling plants in some of them.

@Philip King ⚡️: Philip, the experts are saying we cannot stay in lockdown until a vaccine, you hardly suggest that?

“Coming out of lockdown can’t wait until there’s testing everywhere, that’s just an impossible dream.” Dr David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation

So should we listen to that expert?

@Philip King ⚡️: If you are suggesting a lockdown until a vaccine, then you are in fact dismissing the experts you are telling people to listen to

@Rathminder: The thing is, unless vaccine is produced, easing the restrictions will mean cases of infection will increase and a new set of restrictions will be put in place.

@Aaron O’Leary: if this virus is left unchecked it will kill 18million people per year. Is that enough info for you