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FIANNA FÁIL’S JIM O’Callaghan and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar agree on one thing – the government should focus on hospitalisations, ICU capacity and deaths rather than new cases when making decisions about Covid-19 restrictions.
In an interview with The Currency this week, Varadkar questioned if we are looking at the wrong numbers when making decisions, stating:
“What I see other countries doing – Belgium is the most recent example – is that they are no longer using case numbers to make their decisions on restrictions and on policy.
“They are looking at hospitalisations, ICU capacity and deaths. It is a job for us as politicians to say to the public health people that maybe we should be focusing on that.
“The objective was to make sure our health service did not get overwhelmed, not to lock down the country and the economy until there was no Covid at all. That is not realistic.”
This follows his comments last month, where he said we should not be obsessed with the daily case numbers, something he repeated again on RTÉ’s New Normal programme.
O’Callaghan – who some tip to be the next leader of Fianna Fáil – says he welcomes Varadkar’s recent comments.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Dublin Bay South TD said he had been making similar points over the last few months.
“I welcome that because I was saying this back in June and July. Yeah, I think we need to recognise why we went into lockdown because we’ve forgotten that.
“We saw the scenes in Northern Italy, and they terrified people, and it would have been appalling if people got this disease, about which we knew very little, came into hospital and they couldn’t get treatment. That would have been an appalling indictment on any country.
“And so we made the right decision to go into lockdown in order to flatten the curve. And we succeeded in that. I think if you look back at 15 April, there was 155 people in intensive care. In mid April, there was 881 people in hospital. We flattened the curve.”
O’Callaghan says the narrative has changed over recent weeks and months.
“People and now eminent commentators in this are saying we need to crush the curve into the ground. Where did that come from? We’re not going to be able to do that, in my opinion, we’re not going to be able to crush the curve into the ground.”
Making the tough decisions in government during a pandemic is not easy, O’Callaghan acknowledges.
The Fianna Fáil TD was speaking before the National Public Health Emergency Team, (NPHET) referenced the increase in hospitalisations, raising concerns around the indicators of disease severity.
The NPHET are doing the job they were established to do, said O’Callaghan, adding that politicians shouldn’t face a backlash when they decide against NPHET advice.
There shouldn’t be criticisms of government if it doesn’t “slavishly follow public health advice”.
O’Callaghan says politicians are often criticised and told ‘just do what NPHET says’ when they question NPHET advice or query whether government should depart from it.
“People are going to die as a result of it, people will say, because you didn’t follow public health advice, these people died. I think that’s a reductionist argument. I think it’s not a fair argument. And I think no matter what step is taken there are risks, and there will be consequences.
“However, the danger is we just have a political system that blindly follows everything NPHET says, and that’s doing a disservice to NPHET as well – it’s elevating their power far too much.”
When asked if he believes the government is blindly following the advice, O’Callaghan said:
“No I don’t think so. Micheál [Martin] is doing a good job as Taoiseach. I think it’s very difficult time at present, like it was much easier to be the Taoiseach closing down the country than reopening it, there is no doubt about it.”
He said opposition politicians and the media would be very critical of the government if it didn’t follow completely public health advice from NPHET.
“I think politicians need to take into account other factors and I believe Micheál and the government are doing that. I don’t believe they’re slavishly following the advice.”
The pandemic is not like another political issue such as homelessness, poverty or unemployment, he said. There is little point in saying we are going to fight and beat it.
“We’re not, we can try and suppress it, but we’re not going to eliminate it in the short term.”
He has serious concerns about the impacts the restrictions and lockdown measures are having on society, and particularly on the mental health of young people.
He said he’d spoken to medical experts who are “alarmed” at the number of referrals of young people since March. This pandemic has had a huge impact on their lives, he said.
“Like it’s probably easier for people my age and older to deal with extraordinary events but I’m really worried about the impact of mental health on people living on their own.
While O’Callaghan said he supports Martin in his approach, there have been criticisms of the Taoiseach within Fianna Fáil in recent weeks.
Sligo-Leitrim TD Marc MacSharry described the relationship Martin has with his party is one of a teacher and his students.
Does O’Callaghan agree?
“I don’t regard Micheal Martin’s leadership as being similar to the leadership of a teacher over a classroom.”
Will O’Callaghan be the next leader of Fianna Fáil?
“I don’t know, that depends on whenever there is a vacancy – there’s no vacancy at present. And I think, you know, we’ve got to be careful we don’t start talking about leadership and issues like that because although it’s not the intention of anyone that is talking about leadership, the effect of it is that it does undermine the current leader’s position and I don’t want to do that.”
Of course, politicians know more than scientists. The economy is more important than the health of the nation.
@Michael O’ Carroll:
Which would be true if NPHET were constituted of scientists, of if it were to produce the scientific evidence that it uses to support the draconian measures it instructs the government to take.
@Michael O’ Carroll: Give us a break from your alarmist sarcasm, nobody is saying that NPHET should be ignored, but there are other voices in the medical and scientific community and in other sectors that are being ignored. We’re currently running our country and fighting Covid because we have access to the debt markets to fund our health service etc., The rate of our current borrowing can’t last and our access to debt markets can change quickly – let’s see how “the health of the nation” fares if the public finances dry up.
@Garry Coll: who do you think sits on NPHET so? According to their minutes they all appear to be medical scientists, of various disciplines, those tasked with delivery health care provision in this country, important to understand capacity and capability, and are themselves advised by an expert group in public health modelling and more medical scientists. Seems all very scientific to me. Who would you rather have on the group tasked with providing medical advice?
As for the scientific evidence, all the studies and research they base their advice upon are in their minutes, which can be found on gov.ie.
@Michael O’ Carroll: They are just medical scientists who are approaching the topic only from the view on how to stop the spread of a virus. Not more.
They don’t do an analysis on how their measurements are reducing life expectancy by reducing natuons wealth or bu stopping other treatments. That’s not their job.
Decisions about the nation are also not their job. Politicians have to make those decisions and check how much risk would be appropriate for each sector afyer hearing many experts of different disciplines.
On another note the people which livelihood is challenged as they wouldn’t be allowed to earn money are less likely to follow any rules preventing that. That’s one of the reasons we don’t lockdown until everything until it’s over (which would probably stop the virus the most) but use practice judgement.
@Garry Coll: The economy pays for the healthcare system. If the economy collapses this will have a more devastating effect on the health of the nation than the Corona Virus.
@D Mems:
I have done as you asked and gone to the gov.ie website and looked at the membership of NPHET.
It has 31 members.
26 are current or former senior administrators within the Dept of Health or the HSE.
Prof Nolan is a career academic.
The President of the College of General Practitioners is on the board.
All fine people no doubt, and I’m sure that several have medical qualifications of some description, particularly the President of ICGP.
But to describe them as medical scientists?
That’s a stretch.
There are two working consultants, one in infectious diseases, other in anaesthetics and intensive care, and Dr de Gascun the director of the National Virus Laboratory, who bring active clinical expertise to the table.
But the rest? It’s a recipe for an echo chamber.
@Garry Coll:
scientist
noun
a person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences.
@Fintan Mac Giolla Pharic:
I’ve been using that same analogy for scientists with regard to Climate Change for years and people think I’m loopers.
It all seems to depend on which sponsored scientist you want to believe in.
@Dave O’Keeffe:
Exactly Dave.
Very few of the people on the board of NPHET seem to have any expert knowledge of any of the natural or physical sciences.
I’m sure some have a medical qualification, maybe some have a science qualification, but for those members of NPHET it has not been their active practising profession for many years, if it ever was.
Very few seem to be studying anything, there is no reference to any of them being involved in research.
The expertise of the vast majority of them, given their elevated positions in the health services or in academics, is in public administration rather than medicine or science.
I find it difficult to see what medical or scientific expertise they bring to the board of that body, which is something the government claims that the body possesses.
@Garry Coll: Well said Gerry
@Michael O’ Carroll: have NPHET any people like Dr Jack Lambert infectious diseases expert in the Mater Hospital or just normal doctors, I don’t believe they have.
@Garry Coll: you do realise that a medicine is the application of science right? The two aren’t separate. It’s actually a pretty good idea to have admin and science working on this because there are two sides to this, One side says what needs to be done and the other what can be done. They come to a conclusion, go to government and government half a$$ it
@Dave O’Keeffe:
I’ll work on the premise that you’re not a troll Dave, and answer you one last time.
Your generalised statement about the links between medicine and science has a certain merit.
But we aren’t talking in general, we’re talking about the composition of the board of NPHET whose instructions now determine government policy.
The point I made earlier is that, while some members of the group may have a medical or science qualification in their resume, over 90% of them have made public administration their career choice, and have no medical or scientific expertise to bring to the board.
There is no balance on the board between medicine, science and administration.
It’s a typical quango, but with much more power and influence than any other quango in the history of the State.
@SB:
Colm Bergin, consultant in infectious diseases at St James Hospital and Professor of Medicine at TCD is on the board SB.
Michael Power, Consultant in Anaesthetics and Intensive Care at Beaumont and Mary Favier, President of ICGP, seem to make up the rest of the currently practicing medical personnel on the board.
@Garry Coll: medicine is science, it’s not a tenuous link. A virologist is a scientist. There are medical professionals of high ranking, and senior civil servants. There are disease specialists, ICU specialists, men al health specialists, ethics specialists, resource specialists etc, they hear from every angle and then try to reach consensus. Also, let me disavow you of another misconception, they do not determine government policy. They advise. Government decides.
@Michael O’ Carroll: Have you a wish be a total sycophant to NPHET?
What Jim says makes perfect sense. Deaths have been low relative to the OTT lockdowns.
@Colm O’Sullivan: did you notice that we only had one lockdown? That deaths only got low after it?
@Dave O’Keeffe:
Yep, definitely a troll.
@Garry Coll: NPHET is a group set up in January within the Department of HealthThere are members from the Department of Health,HSE,HIQA(Health Information and Quality Authority)HPSC(Health Protection Surveillance Centre),ICGP(Irish College of General Practitioners)HPRA(Health Products Regulatory Authority) as well as consultants and epidemiologists,the Coronavirus Expert Advisory Group (Dr Cillian de Gascon is Chair)& the Epidemiology Modelling Advisory Group (Professor Philip Nolan is Chair)
Note: public health &it’s subsections, epidemiology, virology are sciences!
@Nuala Mc Namara:
You’ve done your speil before Nuala or Dave or whatever ident you want to use.
Save it for the gullible.
@Colm O’Sullivan: Because of the lockdowns is the truth
@Garry Coll: I have posted comments on the Journal comment forum for years under my real name& what I’ve posted here are factsI haven’t seen you comment here before February!
@Michael O’ Carroll:
The economy IS the health of the nation.
Nphet is made up of epidemiologists and virologists. They are medical scientists and researchers whose job is to follow the trajectory of the virus. They are adhering to WHO guidelines to count every case, to record where it is. They are not tasked with looking at its impact on people. Their job is to count numbers and do the stats. For the purpose of understanding how the virus progresses, every case is the same whether it be symptomatic or asymptomatic. A death is a death whether it be a person dying from Covid or a person having died in a traffic accident with asymptomatic covid. While that is important from a scientific purpose, it tells us very little about how it impacts people’s health
@Anne Marie Devlin: I agree your point re NPHET not being tasked to look at its impact on people- but I don’t think you are correct the the make up of NPHET. There are several medical doctors on it including an ICU specialist and a GP representative. Also quite a few civil servants. It isn’t just virologists.
@Mairead Jenkins: you can google it and they are not all medical. Your correct many are civil servants and have as much medical training as I have, which is none.
@Joan Featherstone: Just to clarify- I didn’t say they were all medical. I did google it. It’s a mix of scientists , medical doctors, civil servants.
@Anne Marie Devlin: that makes very mittle sense. Counting the number and doing the stats is how you track its impact on people. Every single day we are told of the impact on people. We know it attacks the lungs and puts a strain on the rest of the heart. We know that it stresses the entire body in serious cases. We know that there are high risk groups and we know what they are. We also know what precautions can help to restrict the spread. What else would you like to know about its impact on humans?
@Anne Marie Devlin: I don’t think there are any actual virologists in NPHET, I stand corrected but I don’t think there are
@SB: Dr de Gascun is a virologist. One of the most prominent people on the NPHET team. You know its public information and you can actually look up who’s on the team at any time instead of constantly saying you’re open to correction on your guesses
There is danger in a political system that people go out and vote for parties that lie and cover up and scam the people out of a decent living
@Derek Richardson: Is there another type of system, Derek.
@Patabake Kennedy: Yes there is a justice system if administered properly would cut out all charlatans that is abundant in the political morass
@Derek Richardson: well said Derek..I was going to say there are more dangers in the political system than this one but you won’t see Jimbo looking to address them…like widespread cronyism and corruption for a start.
@Derek Richardson: If…….?
The only numbers that count are those that are in hospitals and ICU, the majority of people have no ill effects from this virus. We need a better strategy based on the hospitalised numbers.
@Tom Bombdadil: Not everyone with ill effects from the virus is in hospital. Some not able to function properly for months after infection
And you know better. Typical FF.
@David Connell: he is just being realistic
@Tony Stack: I think it’s pronounced populist. Anyone who takes advice for Tulisa from n-dubz’s defamation lawyer against scientists needs to check the why behind pronouncements like this (hint: they want to be Fianna fail leader and make it a Tory/SF mix)
@David Connell: typical Senior Counsel. Like Mickey McDowell he thinks he knows it all.
Their job is reading a brief summary of the topic involved and spoofing in front of a judge who knows even less on the actual subject.
Brian Lenihan didn’t realize how much he didn’t know about finance and it nearly bankrupted the country
I think there is merit in what he is saying. Covid19 won’t be eradicated until a vaccine is in place. The big issues back in March & April were: the disease got into nursing & care homes. Secondly, we didn’t have a handle on how many people had covid19 – we had numbers for people who showed symptoms but nothing really around asymptomatic numbers. Today we are in a different place: testing and tracing is much better (not perfect).
The focus now should be twofold: 1. Ensure complacency doesn’t set in and follow advice: distance, mask and handwash. 2. Have trigger points based on capacity utilisation in health service while being cognisant of daily infection rates.
@Ger Murphy: Isn’t that what they have done. The movement between the levels on that 5 level plan depends on ICU numbers, hospital cases, R no – not just the absolute number of positives. They are all considered.
@Mairead Jenkins: nope. 90% of the discussion has been around case incidence. NPHET are out of touch with the best science here. They’ve lost the people and, by the signs of Jim’s musings here, lost much of the government also. Main point being we don’t have a cabinet brave enough to lead. They are following the mood of the people who know now it’s gone too far but nobody has the backbone to step forward on it.
@Mairead Jenkins: Well R number is derived from the cases so no. of cases still affects to the decision.
@Mairead Jenkins: Yes I agree except the daily infection & death rates seem always to be headline grabbers.
I think the messaging is improving. A concern i have on hospital numbers numbers is that people might say “ah its just 105 in hospital and 15 in ICU”, (not exact figures i know). More education about the displacement effect on hospital resources of having covid19 cases in a hospital campus is needed too.
@Ger Murphy: Agree totally. Far too much media focus just on case numbers. The actual 5 level plan – and in particular section 3.1 -makes it clear hospital capacity ,ICU numbers etc all vital in decision making.
@Mairead Jenkins: ah heck, too much harmony & agreement. We’ll be banned by the journal!!
This lad is not leadership material.
He definitely talks alot about leadership for someone who says talking about leadership undermines the current leader and he would not want to undermine the leader’s leadership Maybe the question of leadership is more complex and I am just being reductionist.
@Fionn Darland: Jim has the personality of a wet wick on bonfire night.
Another self promoting as—————s
@Fionn Darland: The part time Taoiseacht Michael Martin will not be a happy bunny.
It brilliant for the government they cant be blamed for anything. It’s all NPHET
Problem is Jim, You cannot build capacity in a few months.
Don’t just talk about it Jim, do it. We don’t need NPHET in the same way a business owner doesn’t need to be an accountant to read a financial state to make decisions
@Paul Lanigan: yeah, but a business owner who doesn’t have an accountant is more likely to run afoul of tax law, more prone to missing out opportunities to optimise their business potential, etc. It is okay to take advice from experts you know, it just allows you to make more informed decisions
About time someone with an alternate view, who can give us HOPE , something lacking in our present leader
Seems to me if the political system had followed the NPHET advice quickly we would be in less trouble now.
Surprised at Jim giving oxygen to an expanding group of influential people who are effectively undermining faith in the advice our public health EXPERTS offer.
One thing is positive though – any surveys of ordinary people have confirmed the majority support restrictions implemented despite the hardship they caused.
Are he and Varadkar missing something ?? The virus has not changed it’s modus operandi. The more new cases there are, the more people will end up in hospital and ICU. That’s kind of simple! The goal has not changed from flattening to squashing the curve! What’s changed is some people for various reasons have grown wary of fighting this and would rather throw some people to the curb eg elderly people ‘imprisioned’ in their homes, just so they can get on with their own lives as normal with absolutely no care or caution or regard for others. Selfish B…
@Marie Broomfield: I couldn’t agree more Marie, politicians will always do what politicians do, expound on subjects they often know little about and snipe at each other in the hope of scoring brownie points. Medical people can be trusted to have the health of their citizens at heart and should not concern themselves with the financial consequences of their advice. Unless we can convince a large cohort of our reckless and bored younger population to keep their socializing habits in check, then the virus will gain access to even the most careful ones and wipe out a complete generation. Humanity in general has a short attention span and our best hope is that peer pressure and public censure of recklessness brings about the required conformity to safeguard the silent majority.
Our health.system has being overwhelmed for the last 30yrs under ff fg labour trolleys nó beds nurses doctors nó shortage of pen pushers never heard them complaining still 3rd or 4th highest amount spent in EU percentage per population
About time someone with an alternate view, who can give us HOPE , something lacking in our present leader
@Paddy Ryan: close your eyes , make a wish and tap your magical shoes together. That’ll fix it!
Will Jim finally tell us how many days a year he clocks into the Dail, and then appears as Barrister in the courts the same day?
It’s Saturday morning people allow yourself relax, don’t be worrying about jim o’callaghan, NPHET or the virus. Some of you are getting notifications at 6 and 7 am! Mad stuff altogether
Here we go again..
in the background Varadker trying to undermine the government and meholes decisions. Subtle hints and sneers here and there. I’d do it different blah blah. When I was king things were better. Who let it in in the first place when we all seen it coming in from Italy and cheltenham. And walked it into the nursing homes ? varadker and his lads did. Mehole is doing a better job at coming up with solutions but taking all the flax.. More track and trac for a start. Bring back Varadker.. MeHole
Varadker the puppet master.
@pabloeskabab: I would say you were a FF BOT but the spelling is atrocious so you are just a FF wannabe.
Totally and completely agree with them both.
What a ridiculous article on the biased views of Jim o Callaghan. NPHET is a team of medical personnel paid to establish facts around the spread of this virus, case numbers, hospitalisations, ICU covid patients, trajectory of the disease and community transmission. The Tánaiste has publicly said when he was leader that he did not take all of the advice given by NPHET at different times and as we can see that has cost our country in terms of community transmission. Leave NPHET who are experienced and qualified to deal with the pandemic and give their advice and not politician’s who have no medical expertise or knowledge. And please act responsibly when you our elected representatives get that advice and implement it it’s entirely
@Sinead O Donnell: JOC is a self imposed back bencher that didn’t get the job he wanted and sulked.
He is playing on people’s fear and trying to be populist.
This is simply an early play to undermine Martin.
He has the leadership and charisma of a stick of celery.
JOC and OCuiv are old male and stale.
If Jim is so concerned why did he refuse a junior ministerial post? He would have had an opportunity to influence from the inside then and not to be sniping from the sideline like the hurler on the ditch.
Wow some very very rare common sense comments.
What they are saying is already covered in section 3.1 of the Living with Covid plan.
The criteria for assessment are:
1. The number, locatition and dispersion, and characteristitics of cases and clusters
2. 14-day and 7-day cumulatitive incidence, 5 day rolling average of cases by county and natitionally.
3. Indicators of viral transmission (including the number of cases, posititivity rate(s) and reproductition number)
4. Incidence, protectitive and outbreak management capacity in at risk settittings and vulnerable groups
5. The testing capacity
6. The capacity and resilience of the health service in terms of a. Hospital occupancy and new admissions
b. Crititical care occupancy and new admissions
7. Numbers of deaths
8. Other measures
@ForrestG45: the title of section 3.1 is Future Approach to Reactive Restrictions
@ForrestG45: all the countries are using the same set of metrics, while maybe putting them in different priority order. Belgium does the same despite all their recent PR. At their daily national update, they provide 3 indicators, new confirmed cases, hospital admissions and deaths.
@ForrestG45: Yes but you seem to be missing the point somewhat – Ireland has been the slowest country to reopen many sections of our economy , travel and hospitality livelihoods in particular have been decimated , many many SMEs are suffering existential threat for their family businesses , entertainment and creative sectors have been decimated , Taxi Drivers and many many other are trying to make ends meet to get through this – and the decision makers are not taking the same balanced approach as other countries – not by a long shot – we have to listen to the daily number of how many total people have been infected – how many new cases all stoking fear mongering and making people like older parents anxiety ridden – we need a better more balanced approach to the harsh decisions – there is a lot of emerging evidence that damage lockdowns and quarantine large healthy sections of the populations actually inflicts disproportionate economic and health damage on the population – so stop being pedantic about the framework – the facts are Ireland is NOT managing this in a balanced way – it is overly conservative – Italy had 800 deaths a day at its worst and has managed to reopen since June and is not seeing a huge increase in death rates – there is NO REASON we cannot take a more balanced approach imo.
Better to blindly follow the instructions from FF eh Jim
If we have effective vaccine and treatment within 18 months then it’s essential to have a general election.
Jim doing his best to undermine Martin without looking like his undermining Martin..Leo was doing the same thing,little gentle reminders that the “real” Taoiseach is still there and the MM thing is only a blip on the landscape..either way MM is a dead man walking and will get shafted the minute Leo takes over the reins…if not before it.
And in fairness the sooner the better.
So is the Government’s Resilience and Recovery 2020-2021 published on 15th September to be torn up which says ‘The GOVERNMENT’S STRATEGY,in line with the public health advice is suppression’.
Whereby we told by Varadkar when he was Taoiseach that while NPHET advises the Government,it’s Government that makes the decisions and they haven’t acted on all advice from NPHET!In fact in June, Taoiseach Varadkar accelerated the re-opening of the country!
Why are Varadkar and O Callaghan undermining their Government’s Resilience and Recovery Plan 2020-2021 and it’s Government strategy for suppression of the virus?
Self interested and undermining all the way ! What happened to a cohesive government setting a plan and sticking to it! U can’t keep all the people happy all the time but we need a straight system and plan and to be led by people who know how to manage a disease in a population and whose job it is to do that – this constant rocking the boat is just Trump -esq populist nonsense
Using Belgium as an example of doing things right is a total mistake https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/belgium/
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