But you were quick to call him 'Herr' with all that implies - and, believe me, it's much too loud to be a dog whistle - when he spent far more time dealing with the pandemic than any man should have had to while his wife was dying. You have to accept you went too far with that.
Hello, hello? What's going on? What's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here!
- E Tattsyrup.
1 in 3 on this small island. I get the distrust of politicians and civil servants but I dont get the issue with Hoolihan, and the other experts that are leading the national response to covid-19 and variants. I have seen nothing but excellence, sound if boring and repetitive advice, and when that advice was ignored we suffered! There will be an 'inquest' in to the national response to an unprecedented acute health emergency and it will tell its own tale in due course but there wont be a lot found lacking from a medical lead perspective. This is a precedence that will prepare for future potential healthcare issues to learn from. I will stand by by my previous opines on this all driving positive change in our healthcare system!! I do think that salaries are obscene for some admin in the area but again we shouldnt throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is odd that a head of a govt department earns double of An Taoiseach or the boss of Dr Hoolihan does likewise. They are the things that need fixing and shouldnt be mixed up as an entire service taking the p1ss!
NPHET a very easy target, and the government is the main offender in painting that target. It was the government who introduced a levels system and then instantly changed it, it was the government that put someone as unfit to just be a TD as Stephen Donnelly in the Health portfolio at a time of medical crisis and it was the government that decided we needed a "meaningful Christmas", which killed over 400 people in one week in February. Meanwhile Tony Hoolohan, whose expertise absolutely trumps the "I was elected, therefore I know what I'm doing" sentiment that gave us Harris, Donnelly and Foley as Ministers, gets called a fascist after he worked to keep the country safe while his wife was dying.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Stop. Digging. The. Hole. Deeper.
You called the man a Nazi, but you haven't the courage to use the word. I had a neighbour many years ago who was a child in Germany in the 30s - she could have told you what living under a certain Herr was really like. Reply if you must, withdraw the comment because you should, but that's my last word on this: I'm not going to drag the thread off topic.
Hello, hello? What's going on? What's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here!
- E Tattsyrup.
To be fair to you, I don't think the media do a very good job of explaining how dangerous covid is to anyone over 50.
Hospitalisation rate is high for anyone over 50. Once hospitals get overwhelmed and run out of staff and oxygen, death rate skyrockets for all ages.
India have vaccinated all their older ages, 11.8% of the population. They're currently scrambling to vaccinate 45-60 age range. You'll find its not 80 year olds dying over there.
10% of 50 year old men are admitted to hospital with a decent chance of dying or suffering long term lung damage, that is extremely high.
Hospitals will get overwhelmed if the virus runs rampant until all over 40's have been vaccinated.
Last edited by Buller; 07/05/2021 at 11:27 AM.
The weakness of Government was in pandering to commercial, emotional and electoral interests over the clear advice from Public Health experts, logic didnt come into it.
I have known quite a few Chief Medical Officers in the DOH over the years and we have been extremely fortunate in this pandemic that we have had a stellar prize winning public health specialist in the Deputy CMO post in Ronan Glynn, and a resolute CMO who wont bow to the extraordinary political pressure ( particularly from Varadkar) placed on him to ignore the clear epidemiological advice. If that advice means that we don`t get into a ground this year, so be it.
Exactly. They were weak and bowed to industrial, and public, pressure and went against NPHET for 3 weeks in December because it was Christmas. FéĆkd us for months after and allowed the new more infectious UK variant to take hold quicker.
The easiest and more populist move to appease a population in the short term is always to ignore scientific advice and data. Shure, we'd have a great time for 3 weeks!
Last edited by Buller; 07/05/2021 at 9:30 AM.
Ok on reflection considering the far right anti masking nut jobs throw the Nazi term around i shouldn't have used the Herr part it was the dictator part i was implying. Withdrawn.
To be clear i don't think the guy is a Nazi but one of the weakest Governments this country has ever had have created a situation where one mans voice was seen as law and logical counter arguments on some points were ignored.
If we had a strong stable Government they would take advice balance the medical with the other views and make a decision, not just rubber stamp.
There's very little room to manoeuvre at the moment. The growth rate is already on a knife edge of R rate 1. The last thing we want to do is have to close things we have reopening in a few weeks.
R rate turns exponential very quickly and we're still not anywhere near vaccination levels for protecting against a hospital surge.
Your argument is centered around the fact you think Covid is harmless for anyone who isn't elderly. Thats not the case at all.
Last edited by Buller; 07/05/2021 at 9:52 AM.
I expected to read this on Facebook, not on here!
During the week i've read some stuff about what life was like for Working German People in the late 1930s, if that's something some aspire to when living in a Emergency period that's up to them in some sort of lower middle class revolt.Stop. Digging. The. Hole. Deeper.
You called the man a Nazi, but you haven't the courage to use the word. I had a neighbour many years ago who was a child in Germany in the 30s - she could have told you what living under a certain Herr was really like. Reply if you must, withdraw the comment because you should, but that's my last word on this: I'm not going to drag the thread off topic.
I'm sure they can find a country that does.Maybe for the sake of Ireland, we should cut off Donegal and appoint John Waters as King and Gemma O'Doherty as Queen. They won't like living under a Monarchy considering how often they bring it up!
Policy monopoly conferred on NPHET and the HSE was hardwired to fail us on non-Covid public health matters - Michael McDowell
This is the point i was trying to make about one voice but without the emotional language.
Balance
That's an article dump, not a point though.
Can you summarise the key concern arising out of it and where you feel "balance" comes into it?
I linked the article because it says better than i could the problem, plus its not a very long article.
a two line summary would be
One viewpoint and issue seen as more important than anything else, cancer care , suicide , Economics, depression ,
Maybe it is more important but it shouldn't be the only consideration.
The problem with just linking articles though is that it could be just a headline that agrees with your view - so it helps to see what the exact point is.
TBH, economics, suicide and depression can take a running jump as arguments at the moment. There is a lethal pandemic around which has filled ICU to capacity very quickly in a number of countries. You don't get to avoid that by saying that your mental health is more important. It's not. It's a self-centred, literally childish, argument. Let's lift lockdown and see how bad your mental health will really get when hospitals are back overflowing, people are dying, you can't get life-saving treatment because there isn't enough oxygen/beds/hospital staff to go around, and you end up living with 80% lung capacity for the rest of your life. (And I say that as someone who has had a close family member commit suicide recently, which can in part be attributed to covid lockdowns).
Cancer care - yes, it's there's an issue here, but again, there is a lethal pandemic about which is unprecedented in modern times, and our healthcare system simply isn't built for that. And that's not the HSE's fault - no modern healthcare system is built for it. This thing is unprecedented in modern times. We've seen that across the world as various countries struggle with this, and you have scenes of queues of ambulances outside hospitals, newspapers doubling in length to cater for obituaries, India running out of ****ing oxygen for God's sake. That's the reality, and wishing otherwise won't change things.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 07/05/2021 at 11:39 AM.
Personally Michael McDowell is the last person I’d use to support an argument - he’s an arrogant ( only surpassed by his boring brother Moore the pro free market economist who ironically had his inflated salary/pension protected by being a public servant) failed politician who during his time in government as a PD minister personified failure in public policy with his nearer Boston than Berlin destructive ‘free market’ approach to everything ( with the exception of Ministers/TDs salaries) - a not as clever as he thinks individual that sees himself as some sort of higher intellectual that knows what’s best for the rest of us - the epitome of everything that is so wrong about the Jesuits
I guess you could say I’m not a fan😄
Thank you. I appreciate that.
The McDowells are grandsons of Eoin MacNeill, which makes them nephews of Michael Tierney (ex Cumann na nGaedheal TD and UCD president - the Tierney Building in UCD) so the lineage is long and wide, and very free market. Not sure if they have views on the League of Ireland (though I suspect they would range from ambivalence to privatisation!).
Hello, hello? What's going on? What's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here!
- E Tattsyrup.
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