# "Why are we so angry at the Government and Nphet"



## Brendan Burgess (8 Jul 2021)

This is an extraordinary headline in the Irish Times









						Why are we so angry with the Government and Nphet?
					

Psychology can help us develop better responses to pandemic twists and turns




					www.irishtimes.com
				




I am not angry with the government and nphet. 

We have bailed out pubs, restaurants and other businesses and they are still complaining. 

They might be angry, but I am not.

I understand that it's an ever-changing, unpredictable, messy situation. 

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (8 Jul 2021)

OK, he didn't write the headline.

And I would not mind it if it had been "Why are some people, mainly business people, angry with the government?"

Brendan


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## Purple (8 Jul 2021)

Brendan Burgess said:


> We have bailed out pubs, restaurants and other businesses and they are still complaining.


We've actually bailed out their employees far more. 

I'm not angry but I am frustrated that public servants are making all the decisions and those decisions are narrow, looking only at the short term impact and only in relation to Civid19, rather than broader public health. I'm not angry though. I miss Simon Harris. That's the biggest surprise to me in all of this.


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## Sunny (8 Jul 2021)

Maybe he just thinks a lot about about himself so was using the Royal 'We'........


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## 24601 (8 Jul 2021)

Brendan Burgess said:


> This is an extraordinary headline in the Irish Times
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'm not sure how extraordinary it is. I think a fairly large portion of the population is angry with the Government and NPHET. You might not be, and that's fair enough, but plenty are. I would say that the overall mood has changed dramatically in the past few weeks.


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## Paul O Mahoney (8 Jul 2021)

Brendan Burgess said:


> This is an extraordinary headline in the Irish Times
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I find it so frustrating when I read some of the stuff , this has been very hard on everyone and businesses have suffered. 

But from the personal attacks on members of NPHET and the ludicrous assertions being made on the policies it says an awful lot about the society we now have.

I appreciate that the majority have gotten on with things but it seems that the vocal minority seem to get the vox pops repeatedly and then they seem to operate in an echo chamber where facts , as much as they are known,  are completely ignored. 

Personally I think what has been done is above good,  B+, and people need to understand that all this is brand new for everyone and there was and still will be issues but I'm very grateful of what has been done .


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## Silvius (8 Jul 2021)

It doesn't seem extraordinary to me. I'm very angry with them. For so many reasons, as Purple said because they're only looking at the short term impact of all this and only how it relates to covid, because I work in mental health and see what the impact of this is, because when compared to the approach taken by governments across the world so many aspects of governance here are inexplicable...because for some the last 16 months has mainly been a lovely, cosy family time albeit with some inconveniences while for others, particularly those who are living alone, working from home and isolated it has been pure hell. Because of the lack of empathy and understanding of all this. Honestly I find it hard to understand why more people aren't angry. Going to leave it there though as pretty soon I'll be in a debate about all of the above and then be even angrier....


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## Purple (8 Jul 2021)

@Silvius, I agree on the mental health issue. My friends father took him own life just after Christmas. He had  struggled with depression for years and when Covid restrictions took his business it was the last straw. During the first lockdown we sent all employees over 65 home (on full pay). One man, in his mid 70's who lives alone, was on the phone crying asking if he could come back. His life was the pub, work and the gym. All of them were closed and he was totally isolated. And I work in a sector which has been largely unaffected by the lockdown.


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## Sunny (8 Jul 2021)

It's a nonsense article but you could also have written one titled 'Why do WE believe that NPHET and the Government are above criticism in relation to anything to do with COVID'. There are plenty of people who believe that being critical or questioning any decision is an Act of Treason. There has been plenty of great work done by thousands and thousands of people including NPHET, HSE and Government during this crisis. It doesn't mean that this pandemic has not exaggerated the inequalities in society. One of the greatest bit of rubbish ever written was 'we are all in this together'. We aren't. I like thousands of others have actually made money out of this pandemic. I got to spend time with my family that previously I could only ever dream of. I didn't get Covid. I don't know anyone personally that died of Covid. I haven't been able to do all the things I want but I can live with that. 

However, there are thousands of others including immediate family members where there has been a huge mental health impact and financial stress imposed on them. There are thousands of people still waiting to mourn loved ones properly. That's not the Government's or NPHET's fault. But as he said in the article, it is harder to be angry at an invisible virus than the people making and announcing these measures of hardship while quoting poetry like that is going to make things better. So what if people are angry at NPHET or the Government. So what if it is irrational or you don't get it. So what if people need to vent and highly paid public health officials and politicians have to take the brunt. Personal abuse is never acceptable but people are allowed to be angry if they want. There is plenty to be angry about.


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## Brendan Burgess (8 Jul 2021)

Again, I would say that the headline should say "some people" or "many people" but not we which implies that we are all of the same point of view.

We are not. 

Covid has ruined a lot of lives.  We might get angry with Covid.

But blaming the government and NPHET for it is misplaced. 

Paul's B+ is about right. 

Brendan


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## Rosjohn (8 Jul 2021)

I'm not angry either.


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## michaelm (8 Jul 2021)

Silvius said:


> Honestly I find it hard to understand why more people aren't angry.


I suspect that most people are pragmatic about all this, and many are sanguine.  Hopefully the UK's (second) attempt at herd immunity, this time with a lot of people vaccinated, will work out okay re Covid hospitalisations and deaths, and then we can then do likewise.


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## Silvius (8 Jul 2021)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Covid has ruined a lot of lives.  We might get angry with Covid.
> 
> But blaming the government and NPHET for it is misplaced.


Take the example of Purple's 70-year old man above. Were the restrictions to blame for his mental health problems or was the virus to blame? The virus is just a virus, the response to it is what counts. This has varied enormously in different countries. Arguably we got the worst of all worlds with one of the most prolonged lockdowns in the world and open borders. The restrictions which were intended to save lives ended up ruining alot of lives too in completely forseeable ways, including plenty of those in the most vulnerable category, including an elderly family member of mine who died as a result of physical and mental heath breakdown caused by the restrictions. The consequences of one-dimensional decisions taken by nphet and govt will be felt for a long time to come.


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## demoivre (9 Jul 2021)

Paul O Mahoney said:


> Personally I think what has been done is above good, B+, and people need to understand that all this is brand new for everyone and there was and still will be issues but I'm very grateful of what has been done .





Brendan Burgess said:


> Paul's B+ is about right.



There aren't too many who had loved ones in care homes who would be grateful for what was done, and that's where most of the deaths occurred. 

You don't get a B+ when you're at the bottom of the class. An E grade would be closer to the mark. Weekly data, updated today,  shows us to be one of the worst performers in the EU/EEA despite one of the harshest lockdowns, with it's disastrous collateral damage.









						Weekly COVID-19 country overview
					

This weekly report provides an overview of the epidemiological situation of the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccine rollout by country.




					www.ecdc.europa.eu


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## odyssey06 (9 Jul 2021)

demoivre said:


> There aren't too many who had loved ones in care homes who would be grateful for what was done, and that's where most of the deaths occurred.
> 
> You don't get a B+ when you're at the bottom of the class. An E grade would be closer to the mark. Weekly data, updated today,  shows us to be one of the worst performers in the EU/EEA despite one of the harshest lockdowns, with it's disastrous collateral damage.


It depends you define 'harsh'.
We never even really have a lockdown by the standards of what happened in Italy and France and Spain at times where you were under house arrest and needed a permission form to venture out.
We have had restrictions for longer than other countries but our measures were less severe.


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## Firefly (9 Jul 2021)

With such an unprecedented event as this there are always going to be winners and losers arising from any government decision. The government had a choice, either have hospitals swamped with Covid patients dying in tents and on wards or reducing/cancelling other services that have resulted in mental-health related deaths and domestic violence. It's a no-win really. I think on balance the first lock-down was justified as there were so many unknown-unknowns, however subsequent lock-downs were due to a woefully inadequate hospital capacity despite having one of the most expensive health systems in the world - this is where the spotlight needs to be shone. If we are really all in this together, the hidebound work practices need to change..


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## Purple (9 Jul 2021)

Firefly said:


> subsequent lockdowns were due to a woefully inadequate hospital capacity depsite having one of the most expensive health systems in the world - this is where the spotlight needs to be shone. If we are really all in this together, the hidebound work practices need to change..


How dare you criticise the heroes (that's every nurse and doctor, including the ones in management and administrative roles and the ones who have spent their working life resisting change). They are all front line staff (front line is exactly the same as being in the trenches during the First World War), including the ones who have no interaction with patients or the public.


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## demoivre (9 Jul 2021)

odyssey06 said:


> It depends you define 'harsh'.
> We never even really have a lockdown by the standards of what happened in Italy and France and Spain at times where you were under house arrest and needed a permission form to venture out.
> We have had restrictions for longer than other countries but our measures were less severe.



Arguing over Semantics won't move us up the table unfortunately.


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## Firefly (9 Jul 2021)

Purple said:


> How dare you criticise the heroes (that's every nurse and doctor, including the ones in management and administrative roles and the ones who have spent their working life resisting change). They are all front line staff (front line is exactly the same as being in the trenches during the First World War), including the ones who have no interaction with patients or the public.


The missus is in that brigade now so I must be a little reticent round these here parts


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## Paul O Mahoney (9 Jul 2021)

demoivre said:


> There aren't too many who had loved ones in care homes who would be grateful for what was done, and that's where most of the deaths occurred.
> 
> You don't get a B+ when you're at the bottom of the class. An E grade would be closer to the mark. Weekly data, updated today,  shows us to be one of the worst performers in the EU/EEA despite one of the harshest lockdowns, with it's disastrous collateral damage.
> 
> ...


Well my mother in law is in a care home and the staff have been tremendous.

What metrics exactly are you referring to that puts us at the bottom of the EU league?

" Harshest lockdown "  laughable, countries in Europe have had curfews, one hour outside allowed in every 24, and people had to have documents to prove they were allowed to be outside,mass burials/cremations.

Some people think that pubs and restaurants not open for inside trade makes our restrictions "the worst in Europe " despite the facts saying otherwise.


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## Paul O Mahoney (9 Jul 2021)

demoivre said:


> Arguing over Semantics won't move us up the table unfortunately.


Facts are very rarely classified as Semantics.


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## Purple (9 Jul 2021)

Firefly said:


> The missus is in that brigade now so I must be a little reticent round these here parts


Happy wife, happy life...


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## Leo (9 Jul 2021)

demoivre said:


> Arguing over Semantics won't move us up the table unfortunately.


If we agree deaths aren't semantics, then we did a lot better than those you are putting ahead of us. When you consider our health service generally was grossly inefficient with poorer outcomes for more investment than many of those countries prior to the pandemic, it might have been expected we would fare much worse.


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## Purple (9 Jul 2021)

Leo said:


> If we agree deaths aren't semantics, then we did a lot better than those you are putting ahead of us. When you consider our health service generally was grossly inefficient with poorer outcomes for more investment than many of those countries prior to the pandemic, it might have been expected we would fare much worse.


Yes, considering how badly organise and wasteful our health service is I think we did well.
It's also worth noting that we don't have an army, or at least none worth talking about, so we can't rely on them to set up field hospitals etc like they can in most other countries.


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## demoivre (9 Jul 2021)

Paul O Mahoney said:


> What metrics exactly are you referring to that puts us at the bottom of the EU league?


Take a cursory look at the weekly data in the link I provided .......waiting for you to come back and say we're not at the bottom, we're 3rd or 4th from the bottom . Ok.


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## Leo (9 Jul 2021)

demoivre said:


> Take a cursory look at the weekly data in the link I provided .......waiting for you to come back and say we're not at the bottom, we're 3rd or 4th from the bottom . Ok.


The main table in the link you provided details numbers of deaths. I presume they list that first as they consider it the most important statistic. On that measure, we are no where near the bottom as you suggest.

Hold on, are you judging performance over the course of the 15 or so months of the pandemic just on the current 14 day running average numbers? That makes no sense whatsoever. That's the same as declaring Crystal Palace premiership champions after a run of two good results.


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## Bluefin (9 Jul 2021)

Why are we comparing ourselves to other countries! 

The real question to ask is did we have excess deaths in our nursing homes and did we have prior knowledge from other countries that the elderly were most at risk of dying from this disease.?


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## Paul O Mahoney (9 Jul 2021)

demoivre said:


> Take a cursory look at the weekly data in the link I provided .......waiting for you to come back and say we're not at the bottom, we're 3rd or 4th from the bottom . Ok.


Again on what metric? The table is Alphabetical as are all the others. So again by what metric are you using . Is it deaths , cases, 14 day incidence?


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## Paul O Mahoney (9 Jul 2021)

Leo said:


> The main table in the link you provided details numbers of deaths. I presume they list that first as they consider it the most important statistic. On that measure, we are no where near the bottom as you suggest.
> 
> Hold on, are you judging performance over the course of the 15 or so months of the pandemic just on the current 14 day running average numbers? That makes no sense whatsoever. That's the same as declaring Crystal Palace premiership champions after a run of two good results.


And we only updated the missing data in the past week and I doubt they are accurate as one figure for us is 5000 another 5006.
And at less than 2% deaths per cases we aren't at the bottom.

_Edit: the last weekly report issued was on the 12th of May and that showed 4929 deaths with about 300 of that figure awaiting " confirmation " no other data was issued from the Hspc since._


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## Paul O Mahoney (9 Jul 2021)

Bluefin said:


> Why are we comparing ourselves to other countries!
> 
> The real question to ask is did we have excess deaths in our nursing homes and did we have prior knowledge from other countries that the elderly were most at risk of dying from this disease.?


I agree but some have a narrative that must be followed and then issue data without any interpretation.

Your second question will take an inquiry to answer, but like other countries we too sent vulnerable elderly people to care homes untested and we lost thousands of them.


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## Paul O Mahoney (9 Jul 2021)

Bluefin said:


> Why are we comparing ourselves to other countries!
> 
> The real question to ask is did we have excess deaths in our nursing homes and did we have prior knowledge from other countries that the elderly were most at risk of dying from this disease.?


Error 1967


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## Paul O Mahoney (9 Jul 2021)

Silvius said:


> It doesn't seem extraordinary to me. I'm very angry with them. For so many reasons, as Purple said because they're only looking at the short term impact of all this and only how it relates to covid, because I work in mental health and see what the impact of this is, because when compared to the approach taken by governments across the world so many aspects of governance here are inexplicable...because for some the last 16 months has mainly been a lovely, cosy family time albeit with some inconveniences while for others, particularly those who are living alone, working from home and isolated it has been pure hell. Because of the lack of empathy and understanding of all this. Honestly I find it hard to understand why more people aren't angry. Going to leave it there though as pretty soon I'll be in a debate about all of the above and then be even angrier....


My personal " hope" is that we learn from this and begin to recognise that the system we have now is broken,  and that's not just from a governmental side but from a societal side too.

We simply can't continue the way we have and let's be honest no political party is going to do anything to help those you care for.

On the short-termism , we need to get people vaccinated,  but also it's ironic that they can get funds immediately to cover this yet things like mental health or other severe conditions that hurt people are ignored. 

Try not to be angry dude it's the most destructive emotion , and that's from someone who used it a lot.


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## Clamball (11 Jul 2021)

I don’t feel anger towards NEPHT or the government.  They have dealt with a horrendous situation the best they were able within the confines of their situations.  A health system that is barely scraping along and a country where he who shouts loudest (lobby groups) often get short term responses that may be against the best interests of the country as a whole long term.

There has been plenty during the pandemic that angers or frustrated me so much and for each citizen that list may be different or similar, different things push different peoples buttons.  There has also been parts 

The slow response at the beginning by the government, a real negative.  The 12th March was way too late for the first wave, I personally was sick with worry from the 7th I would say.

Mental health was seriously under resourced before the pandemic, it still is.  

The poetry. I loved it.  I wish there was more.

The lack of intensive care beds, which still has not been fixed put us on the back foot from the start.  This made me worry, but did not anger me.

The Nepht press conferences were a real positive for me, they sound professional, caring, and are not afraid of delivering bad messages.  

The media I feel have not covered themselves in glory.  As well as repotting the news & the facts, I think they have done  a poor job of the photographs they pick.  Groups out enjoying the waves when most of us could not go more than 2k.  Granny Mary celebrating her 100th with numerous callers and well wishers all lines up when at the time she should been cocooning.  Hundreds lining the street for a funeral when only 10 were allowed.  The media may have felt these stories and images were uplifting but for us joe plods sitting at home like we were told they weren’t.

I was not happy about how judgemental I became, like the last paragraph, or friends, family or neighbours behaving in ways I felt went against the spirit of the current restrictions.  Hearing of a friend whose children travelled home from the UK for Christmas when my mother decided not to come for Christmas dinner, yes it made me bitter & judgemental.

I feel we handled the nursing homes just as badly as other countries but could we have done better, yes.  Having care assistances working across several homes should have been stopped.  Family visits should have been allowed more, I could not understand why a son or daughter could not visit but a care assistant who was living with other care assistants all who worked in multiple care homes could come and go as normal. I know which one would have been more careful of the older person.

I think Brazilian workers in meat plants were another area the government could have stepped in.  If they had permanent contracts and were paid directly by the factories this would have reduced the risk.  The German government made this change early on in the pandemic.

We were lucky, none of our household lost jobs, we probably saved money, we had a garden to sit in, we had room in our house to spread out, none of us got the virus and 3/4 of us are currently vaccinated.

Portugal granted all asylum seekers citizenship in the first few weeks of the pandemic, we should have done the same, this may have reduced the risks there instantly.

My list of what gets to me positively or negatively is unique, each of us experiences the pandemic differently, we are all angry about some aspect, other parts reduce us to tears.  I suppose what all of us want and need is that the future world will act to make permanent positive changes based on the pandemic and its impact on society.


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## demoivre (13 Jul 2021)

Any decisions made by Holohan, NPHET, M Martin etc should be forensically scrutinized given that we are outliers re Antigen testing, Indoor hospitality, Aviation and Attendance at outdoor sporting events, never mind the fact that there are still 220,000 on PUP.
The 6,000 at the Aviva stadium on Saturday were required to wear masks. Those same people could then head to the nearest pub after the match and sit outdoors 6 to a table without masks. Is the science behind that based on a Nolan model ? Any sign of a peer review of the model that ignores natural immunity, seasonal effects and comorbitities and that has kept indoor hospitality closed except when you stay in a hotel and can eat and drink all day long.?


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