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Two Galway players positive and game off. https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2020...-for-covid-19/
It really is a critical stage for everything at the moment. With levels as high as they are at the moment, has to be a possibility of more games falling to the same fate.
Nphet letter explicitly allows for elite sport to continue even under Level 5 - "No matches or sports events are permitted - exemption for professional/elite/senior inter-county/horse racing behind closed doors."
So the Gah Championships, Dundalk's Europa League games and Rovers march to an 18th League title will all go ahead.
I disagree with you Nesta (with all due respect as i appreciate you work in Health) about the Politicians taking the easy way out by postponing Lockdown, they are putting themselves in danger of being shown to be wrong if things get very bad. Up to now they have been cowardly hiding behind NPHET and treating every proclamation from them as being infallible and must be obeyed .....perfect cover as if anything went wrong they were only following orders.
The problem with NPHET is they are a bunch of Medical people who will get paid while the rest of us exist on €350 pw during Lockdown, meanwhile they have "done their job".
There is Zero hope of an all Island approach , the Unionists would happily settle for the risk of dying rather than cut themselves off from the UK. Brexit !!
Whats my Solution?
We have to manage the risk , the same as we don't ban cars and tractors because 4/500 people die on the roads every year.
Without the HSE/NPHET "managed" debacle in the nursing homes the death toll would be 5 or 600 people
How do we manage the risk, Lockdown for at risk people only way way way far from ideal but is it better than everyone ,Lockdown for over 65 or with underlying condition (that would include me :) ).
Covid is becoming politicized with opposition who were all against Lockdown now screaming about the Govt ignoring NPHET...
Hmmm, I dont think we would gain to much of a consensus on this sbgawa. It would be wrong of me to say that working in healthcare doesnt influence my opinion but my opinion is based on a bigger picture too, not just the dread of endless shifts, being overwhelmed and unable to get a job done, witnessing the distress without the means to help, or even the risk it all poses to my family with the high risk of being a carrier - I chose this career, not them, and for as much as you try to isolate in one house is damn hard. I think its unfair on NPHET to think that they call the shots with zero consideration of the implications as they are not at risk of losing their jobs and will be paid. The will certainly be at minimum managing staffing resources where infection rates and potential deaths (patients and staff) will occur based on their decisions, as has happened.
You are spot on about managing the risk, we'd have done pretty well if contract tracing had been better managed. I do get that there is an unprecedented learning curve. It should also be noted that many of those that have been infected havn't 'recovered' in a couple of weeks. There are lingering symptoms that there is little known about. But there is certainly an improvement in how cases are managed as learning on the go happened.
It needs to be remembered that it is the public that mostly dictates where this all goes, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters can keep themselves and family in work or damage their family with irresponsible behaviour. Thats without the whole death stuff. There is opportunistic politics going on which is a pain in the ass - the collective nature in managing all this is every bit as important as it was last March if not moreso. I cant take the argument about banning cars as they too cause deaths argurments etc! The same could argued endlessly about a whole lot of things, we dont ban alcohol because people drink and drive, or basically anything that people can misuse or abuse. This is obviously different, I dont need to list off all the whys, just the expotential nature of this is enough in comparison to your example. Its very much short term pain for long term gain, across the board and would protect the things of concern to you eg jobs. How many retailers would survive no Christmas trade as opposed to 3 weeks in October.
I do understand how NPHET has looked, an unelected body dictating to government - no different really than the central bank advising on fiscal policy or civil servants advising ministers. They can and have been ignored, I seriously hope they are wrong of course, but they havent been in predictions so far and their quick intervention saved lives and arguably the ability for the economy to open and recover. Just looking at UK rates, especially in NI, +500 cases per 100k in Derry, 300 in Newry (80 or so in Dundalk for comparison of a similar area but different jurisdiction/policies), those numbers nationwide here would overwhelm the health service and spook the economy - we are NPHET, time and an invisible line away from it!
edit - there is somthing that'd probably be in agreement sbgawa and thats how this could have been spun. Reading passinginterest's post saying how NPHET blinsided government. If the reprimand had been kept quiet it was possible to state that weighing up the risks to the economy et al if returning to lockdown, including the resourcing of covid response maybe, the govt took a more measured and broadened decision. Buuuutttt it was a close run decision and if people dont shape up it will happen. Restriction fatigue or just the generally reckless kind of behaviour could have been reduced if people were faced with the prospect of the local being closed or uni students being sent home. Instead, what we have now is the attitude that NPHET dont know what they are doing or dont care, that they are just covering themselves, power hungry after getting a taste of dictatorship, no regard for for others job security etc. Kinda the sort of stuff that Trump has been shouting about the WHO, CDC, Dr Faucci with his support base loving it. (Im not comparing you to any Trump supporter, just in case sbgagwa!!!).
It could get out of hand very quickly if there are more games postponed. Obviously we already have a big fixture backlog due to Europe but with the rush to get the league finished by the end of the month it will get messy for everyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by joey B
So an extra week off for Dundalk - that should mean their European players have had time to recover at least.
He's a Pats player they are all bound to test positive for something :)
Just give Dundalk the points.......
Well if things continue to be postponed at least our PPG wont continue to slide, other clubs around us just need to be nice keep beatng each other.
I see the rowing back on criticism of NPHET has started and credibility trying to be repaired. I know I am probably unnecesarily bleating on about covid but a bit of a shocker of a peer reviewed report out this week that in random samples from clusters in the US, across all demographics has shown that 78 people from 100 hospitalised with covid-19, 10 weeks after being discharged, showed signs of cardiac 'injury'. Possibly as high as 30% of all cases internationally showing elevated markers in bloods that are usually more associated with heart attacks. So aside from acute cases, we could be looking at a generalised health crisis in a similar vane to obesity and TII Diabetes epidemic. For footballers and all sports people that test Covid-19+ cardiac screening may be prudent even if asymptomatic considering this new info.
Question for you Nesta. The case rates are up to April levels - 500 a day. But deaths are way down on April levels - they were 40-50 a day, and now it's 1-2 a day. (Today at 5 being an exception). Any reason for that? Is it that the real case levels in April were actually way higher? Or did nursing homes skew things that dramatically? Or are medical treatments improving? Will we see death rates start to increase over the coming days?
I know there's other side-effects - lung damage, heart damage, fatigue, etc - but I suppose at a macro level (and this sounds awful), if people aren't dying, then the populace will be more complacent.
Is it possible to play the game on Sunday instead of Friday (Pats/Dundalk). Hard to see how the game can be fixed anywhere on Dundalks schedule
What happens if Pats have another case next week? Does their scheduled game next week get called off aswell. I would have thought that if it’s one player and the rest of the squad get tested and are negative, that the game could then go ahead.
We can't fit the Pats game in anywhere until November, so our league season has to be extended now anyway.
Is the Ireland backroom team member who has COVID also connected to a LOI club?
Answer is a bit all of the above. The emergency licencing of Remdesivir definitely improved things and shortened the need for mechanical ventilation - that alone would have reduced mortality rates as the longer on a ventilator the more complicated things get (eg not blowing off Co2 causing respiratory acidosis on top of everything else). Basically therapeutics were being tried on the job and eventually things were narrowed down that helped the sickest. Some was basic stuff, done as standard years ago that returned in desperation eg having patients lie on their front as lungs are 'attached' to the back, so lying prone helped increase volumes. Earlier intervention has been significant. The demographic of those the were infected evolved away from the most vulnerable as cocooning et al kicked in. I cant speak for all hospitals but having growing capacity of ICU beds as things evolved meant a better ouctome too. Retrospective covid deaths were added to numbers about then particularly from residential care homes as pathology reports were caught up on. Death rates will definitely climb (imo) but with adjusted trends for demographic profile and that we may be able to intervene before the genie is out of the bottle with seriel testing, stopping visitors to hospitals and care homes etc. But as we have seen there are weaknesses in the chain, it only takes one person who thinks this is an all ott and the virus rampages through elderly folk in a home. Growing numbers of younger people infected are going to carry in to the home where eg parents are exposed who may not be as resilient. If we hit much higher that 500 cases a day nationwide the mortality rate will climb due to capacity issues especially in acute hospitals. Expotential growth at those levels is the reality that is feared by NPHET.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
We have been pretty much on the ball in this country, some of the top virologists in the world are here, we have a major biopharma industry, and we provide about 65% of the worlds mechanical ventilators/anaesthetic machines, so that gives us clout when the chips are down. High ranking people in the WHO gives earlier access to international modelling - the circuitbreaker theory eg as yet untested in Europe but solid thinking. An importantly impartial tropical disease centre that identiified that this virus has not been manufacttured and RNA sequences show crossed to humans 12 months ago now.
That is far more info than needed but I dont want be the harbinger of doom completely, especially as I was playing this down last Jan and was very wrong. It is looking very promising for the Oxford vaccine being good and could be licenced by Christmas. EU has secured access in advance but will undoubtedly play in to Brexit talks irrespective of contracts signed and sealed. We have been assisting the Brits through their mess by supplying ventilators and PPE so quid pro quo and get some of the early batches but full roll out realistically is next spring at the earliest.
The last bit isnt awful at all, its pragmatic thinking and the reality too. Best alternative example is how we pat ourselves on the back for reducing road fatalities. But do we count the numbers that that survive accidents but with life changing injuries!? A trip to the Nationa Rehabilitation Hospital is a real eye opener and tbh in my experience had me rethink things more than even death tolls. Complacency is a natonal issue on flipping nearly everything....blood donations are at f*cking 2% of the population yet 1 in 4 will need transfusion at some point??. I am at risk of going off on a serious rant on this general issue but we tend to lack a social conscience as a people!!
To put a football spin on this non football post - LoI clubs could play a key role for their communities via access to supporters, something a little more than wash hands, cough etiquette, keep safe. Proactive stuff like keep your club alive by beating covid, offer ownership to the problem not generic stuff where people think its up to others to deal with. There is a whole bunch of things that could be done with some thinking outside the box!
OK - so the takeaway of that really is this thing is still bloody nasty, but we are managing it better, even if obviously there isn't a cure/vaccine for it as yet? But if we open up fully, then it won't take long for hospitals to fill up, and then you've the issue of not being able to treat everyone, and that's when we'd really get into trouble?
As a football-related aside, just got a text there that Antonin Panenka is in intensive care with it.
Lol yup, in 3 or 4 lines you've said what took me 50 odd!
In recent weeks Dundalk have shown their contempt for the league by fielding reserve teams , so league should pick a date before end of October and let them play their reserves .. what goes around comes aroundQuote:
Originally Posted by Kiki Balboa
Club legend of Bohemians in Prague. A fantastic club, one of the best in Europe (outside of County Louth). Highly recommend getting to a game after covid.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I will bite!Quote:
Originally Posted by Calcio Jack
But we dont have a reserve team! We have a very expensive squad who are all first teamers but Dundalk's player recruitment has been poor, well as Dundalk fans are regularly reminded of and what a waste of money it must be. Contempt for the league? in a season where a number of clubs are probably on their knees - show me a club that wouldnt have prioritised a €3-4mil payday game. If referring to the Harps game well you were talking about this prior to the KI game. What about player welfare, giving players game time, developing young players, assessing things for next season, seeing whether players are interested enough to earn a new contract when 16 are out of contract by early December. Its not the youth team thats being sent out to play!
Nesta you have just made my greatest nightmare come true. You have stated exactly what I said to my neighbour 4 weeks ago, that the Brits would use a Covid-19 cure as a bargaining chip to screw Ireland over again. They never change their spots. If you think Covid-19 restrictions are bad just wait until we are hit with the new Brexit tax, under a health guise. I am too damn close to the edge hearing this news. In fact I am praying hard the Oxford cure fails. I would sooner die than take it at this rate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nesta99
And add to that there are sickos in the Dáil want to murder not just the unborn but those living in pain as well.
For the record I am living in chronic pain for the last 15 years and I would vote firmly against this murder notion that they are disguising as 'assisted suicide'.
Being an Athlone Town supporter my pain threshold is high and no joke intended.