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EVERY WEEKDAY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you the five biggest stories of the day.
1. #THE BIG DAY: Follow all the updates here as Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States.
2. #SPECIAL EDUCATION: The government went on the attack today after unions said they wouldn’t back plans to re-open schools for special education.
3. #COVID-19: There are 1,919 people with Covid-19 in hospital, with 210 in ICU
4. #MEA CULPA: Josepha Madigan withdrew ‘normal children’ comments but now faces fresh criticism for mother and baby home comparison.
5. #SHOT IN THE ARM: The ‘Game-changer’ AstraZeneca vaccine will not land in Ireland before it is approved.
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Always low the day before Storm Barra
@Mattress Dick: Probably so low due to them being pressured into using the Barra metric instead of their usual count system…
@William Tallon: I’ve no idea what that means either…
Huge drop because people have given up tryna get tests. I refreshed the HSE page for three days in a row with no luck.
@Rob Gale: 224,000 tests in the past 7 days
@Rob Gale: lies, I booked one easily enough, test two hours later , results next day ,
@Tomás Barrett: Denmark carried out 220.000 yesterday.
@Tomás Barrett: Small numbers compared to other countries. Not testing as much as we should with such high cases about.
@Paul Hedderman: testing is voluntary and recommended only if you have symptoms, surely low testing numbers is a good thing
@Kim Steen Hansen: not the point, the point is people can and are getting tests and testing hasn’t significantly dropped off.
@Paul Hedderman: Waste of time testing, we know its endemic in the community. Testing should only be reserved for those attending hospitals or frontline care givers.
Testing Damo who was in Coppers on Saturday and ringing around the 15 moths he lobbed the gob on is a bizarre waste of resources.
@Kim Steen Hansen: Denmark is doing a lot more testing than most countries. But Denmark seems to report all antigen tests as well PCR tests – which might explain the high figure
With similar populations we see
Denmark 96 million tests
Oman 25 million tests
Singapore 21 million tests
Ireland 8.9 milolion tests
Norway 8.6 million tests
Finland 8 milion tests
New Zealand 5 million
So Ireland is 4th highest tester in the 5 to 6 million population countries.
@Jason Walsh: many reports of people not being able to get a test. Everyone who wants a test should be getting them. Should be lots of symptoms in winter that isnt covid. Our positivity is about 14%. UKs is 4.5%. Denmark is 2.5%. France is 6%. Portugal is 3.3%. Spain is 5.5%…… other countries testing more. Testing is a big part of containing it and stopping it. So we’re not doing enough despite what MM says.
@Rob Gale: refresh at midnight and the next days appointments are reset and you’ll get one easily
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: Denmark did 49.4 million PCR and 46.6million antigen tests so far. 220k PCR and 145k antigen tests yesterday alone. Vs our 32k tests yesterday. Norway has had half the cases we’ve had, Finland has had a third but have carries out nearly the same amount of tests. NZ have much less cases particularly after isolating themselves but have done alot of tests considering…….. All pointing to the fact that we’re not testing enough.
@LaoisWeather: 15 moths and your ma…
@Kim Steen Hansen: They nee to they have a massive outbreak
@Gary Kearney: please let me know where they have that outbreak. Then you know more than they do!
@Kim Steen Hansen: and don’t come with todays numbers only. They have had high testing numbers for a while
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: Do you know the PCR test numbers for comparison?
@Kim Steen Hansen: just saw the numbers from an earlier post
Next 14 minutes are critical
@James Lough: :)
@James Lough: Several studies have shown that two doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer offer 79% and 90% protection against hospitalisation and death after six months.
Japan joins a long list of countries who had the cop on to change their treatment protocols and reaped the rewards. The have close to if not the full 100% vaccination but cases and hospitalization started to rise dramatically, so the introduced that cheep tablet (IVE……N) which we are not allowed to say because pharma want to rip the world off with their new state of the art tablet treatments from 400-700 dollars compared to the one used in Japan and other countries which costs only around 2 euros for a course.
@Niamh Brady: dr. Pierre Kory and others like him has been, at the front line treatment of C19, he championed both the use of steroids and IVER. Notwithstanding the global media attack on success, including parts of india where lives have been saved when using as a treatment. Personally I would have more faith in a frontline medical doctor and the others who have saved lives and have no financial gain by way of lobbying the approval and adoption of iver the only gain is to save lives than compared with a highly paid Presstitute employed by a global investment fund. its getting to the stage where those reporting on iver success have to be very careful with their wording ..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1GF0H9V_1g
@Nicholas Byrne: ooooh time to stop watching YouTube??
@Damo: god love ya would you not educate yourself
https://covid19criticalcare.com/
https://covid19criticalcare.com/
@Nicholas Byrne: the headline was enough.
Oh yeah the FLCCC… Jesus man… straight away there was a testimonial of some random doctor…the very first thing… I’m convinced.
You really can’t see through that???
@Nicholas Byrne: so you want everyone to be triple vaccinated and then top up on oral steroids and animal heart worm tablets? Sounds great.
@Damo: some random doctor? as I wrote God love ya
@Nicholas Byrne: you should lie down and give your head a rest, Nick.
@Nicholas Byrne: “Both the FLCCC and Bird have drawn further scrutiny from other medical professionals for affiliating with prominent anti-vaccine organizations. In September, the FLCCC and Bird sent open letters to health departments in Australia, New Zealand, Iceland and the Cayman Islands advocating for the use of ivermectin for a variety of Covid-19 treatments. Listed as partner organizations on the letters were several international anti-vaccine groups, including the organization of prolific anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/13/ivermectin-treatment-covid-19-anti-vaxxers-advocates
Flutebag…
@Sean O’Doherty: I have no doubt that there are some unfortunate citizens unnecessarily lying in their graves because of incompetence and a narrow minded view point which has led to unnecessary deaths.
@Nicholas Byrne: Sorry folks, I’m late to the show.
Japan has not approved Ivermectin for use.
This fake news started after people manipulated footage of a speech given on Aug 13th 2021 by Mr. Haruo Ozaki, chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association. They added fake subtitles to make it appear that Japan abandoned the Moderna vaccine and approved Ivermectin instead. They posted the fake video to Instagram last August.
On the contrary, Mr. Haruo Ozaki explained in his August speech, that Ivermectin is not approved in Japan due to a lack of clinical trials. From Haruo Ozaki’s Aug 13th news conference:
“Another problem is that ivermectin has already been used in many countries around the world, and its dosage, dosage, safety and efficacy have been confirmed, but it has not yet been done in clinical trials in Japan. For this reason, ivermectin is not covered by the drug side effect relief system. This makes it difficult for doctors to use. However, even in such anxiety and disadvantageous situations, doctors who are convinced of the effects of ivermectin. Some of us are prescribing ivermectin at our own risk. I hope that the Japanese version of the EUA Maintenance Law will be enacted as soon as possible.”
So Ivermectin is not approved in Japan and only a few doctors are prescribing it at their own risk.
Mr. Ozaki went on to say that a clinical trial of Ivermectin is planned and this could help approve Ivermectin in Japan, if the results are positive:
“In Japan, a clinical trial led by Kowa, a major pharmaceutical company, is finally scheduled.” – Mr. Ozaki
However, by the end of August, 90% of people >60 were fully vaccinated and infections plummeted, there is no need for an Ivermectin trial.
Here is the video of Mr. Ozaki’s news conference on August 13th, upload date Aug 14th:
https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm39178874
And here is the translated transcript of Mr. Ozaki’s news conference, article date August 18th 2021:
Big panic over nothing.
@John brett: It’s not when people are trying to access ICU units but can’t because they are full up.
@Seán Ó Briain: Where has that occurred?
Open the pubs!!!
@TheKloppKop: they are open it’s the night clubs that are closed from tomorrow.
@Alan Martin: they will be closed Xmas week until after New year.
@TheKloppKop: open all pubs and nightclubs there a storm coming
@TheKloppKop: close the dubs!
@John Hazelnut: Median age of death from Covid is 82 years old. Gives you an idea of how deadly Covid is. It’s very dangerous to a tiny minority. Fact.
Open up the brothels but close the pubs
@TheBurner: Why settle for soup when you can have beer instead…
Yet 4967 positive swabs today, expect artificially high numbers at the end of week designed to scare the already scared.
@Diar O Doc: There won’t be too many braving the elements tomorrow and Wednesday to have their noses swabbed, so looks like low numbers right out until Friday at least.
@Diar O Doc: actually the labs publish their raw data and this is returned to the various areas and the HSE system updated and the data validated before the figures are presented in the evening report. This has always been the case and I commented and explained this last December – not designed to scare but a failure by some people to understand the reporting and validation process
@Diar O Doc: I’m curious.
Do “they” artificially lower the numbers so they can then artificially raise them…..to scare people?
“they” must be geniuses but not as smart as your good self for spotting this ruse!
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: But it is easier to say it is a scare tactic.
The next 14 comment will be critical
@Splat: very concerning
Close the testing centers!!!
@PW: They’d be the ones operated by the U.S. government as opposed to the HSE centres I take it?
Xi Jinping variant in full effect
Are they in ICU because of covid or have covid and in for other things? Aren’t ICUs full every year and where have all the flu and respitory infections that create a trolly crisis happen every year gone?
That’s very low all of a sudden
@The only INFP in Ireland: there was almost 5,000 positive swabs
@Louise Tracey: still low number reported.
@Louise Tracey: so what is new? This has been the case since testing started – the labs have always published the test and positive count but this is unvalidated data – what happens then is these tests are associated with an individual/patient and any duplicates or previously reported individuals removed by the validation process.
So the raw lab data is always ahead of the published verified date reported in the evening.
This has been known since last year so nothing new here and nothing about holding back numbers for another day and if you go back to 2020 December you will find a comment I made about this, before the issues of under reporting in January 2021 because of the volume of cases.
New measures working already. Meaningful Xmas here we come!!!!
@Justin Gillespie: there was almost 5,000 positive swabs
@Justin Gillespie: Tell us you’re messing.
@Ernie Gallagher: Of course I’m messing, we all are. This is journal.ie after all.
Close all the supermarkets!
Drown the shamrock. Have a barbie.
@a: That’s sounds a little creepy.
@Robert Clifford: Unless you’re Ken…
Down a bit. Thank goodness.
Hopefully that was the last of that wave and the people who are unvaccinated get vaccinated.
All of the vulnerable cohorts get their booster as soon as possible and we make the progress all the work deserves.
@Gary Kearney: To be fair to the government they are facing an interesting dilemma :
How to convince the unvaccinated that the 2 doses of the vaccine work but at the same time convincing the vaccinated that it doesn’t work and you need a booster (3rd dose).
@Verners Tess: It does work – but you still need a booster. And possibly a fourth and fifth and sixth. But it does work. Look at the drop in the number of deaths amount the vulnerable who are fully vaxxed. That is the only metric that counts. Stop spreading your anti-vax BS.
@Paul Whitehead: No anti vax here, pro choice. You said, deaths amongst vulnerable way down. Great. It is doing its job on those that need it most. But why are we going for 3rd, 4th boosters throughout population when a lot of the world isn’t even double digit vaccinated?
Why are people being forced to take it when it is shown it does not prevent transmission?
Why do we need papers to go places?
Why are people losing their jobs?
You said yourself, deaths amongst vulnerable down, vaccine working to protect them so why are the rest of us suffering?
have your say