Sophrosyne
Registered User
- Messages
- 1,544
Where will the next major outbreak(s) that we should have known about be?
Cabinet announced new measures (18-Aug-20)
- Thread starter odyssey06
- Start date
That's some difference!
When you have the industry bodies saying they're following best practice but still pushing for advance notice of inspections...
I know. It's just crazy. Really got annoyed today when Eamonn Ryan said that their test and trace system got caught off guard when the numbers started rising. We went through months of a lockdown to enable them to avoid a surge in the health system and give them time to build a test and trace system that worked. Instead they wound the system down as numbers fell. We should have been using the testing capacity whatever the cost. I presume it was a money saving exercise which makes no sense as we spend millions on keeping large parts of the economy closed.
As far as I know the whole testing and tracing system is internal to the public service, only using state laboratories. Surely they could subcontract this out to the private sector aswell, any competetant science graduate could do the test, afterall its mostly mechanistic and repeatable, once you can do one you can do a thousand, the most important component is the chemical reagant, its not like looking an x ray
The HSE numbers show the current system has a capacity of ~100,000 tests a week, the real question is why they are using less than a third of that on most days. They have said a 'significant' number of close contacts are refusing to engage with the testing process, and many more fail to show up for the second test, but that can't be in the thousands per day.
Using new case numbers as some kind of barometer for measuring the effectiveness of policies against COVID19 is pointless because so few tests are carried out. Even if 100k tests a day are carried out you have no idea how many others have or haven't got the virus, or had it previously. So you absolutely can't conclude, even though most do, that the virus is on the increase.
Draw your own conclusions from the charts below as to how we're doing against COVID19.
That really all depends on the consistency of the criteria being used to select people for testing. No scientific study tests entire populations or even large portions of them, but a sample size of thousands a day is more than enough to make reliable estimates of the overall population, provided the sample selection criteria are sound and consistent.
We're not randomly testing the people. We're testing the people reporting the symptoms of covid19.
The number of GP referrals, number of cases, the number of hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths are all part of the equation.
Just looking at hospitalisations won't tell you if there are large numbers of under 45s infected.
If there's a large number of under 45s infected now, important to know that for community transmission to vulnerable groups.
This trend has been happening for a while that under 45s are socializing much more and are being infected yet no big increase in hospital admissions, the same trend all over Europe. In fairness it can get out of hand like in Spain but they had bars nightclubs and music open, no fear of that here since most of these still absolutely shut.
We are not getting to zero cOvid, there seem to be a few influential people in nphet that are a bit delusional about achieving this. We don't have the state infrastructure to do it, New Zealand uses army to enforce quarantine, not a chance of that happening here.
Yeah getting a bit fed up of the comparisons with New Zealand. We are one of the most open economies in the world and part of the largest single market in the world. New Zealand are over 4k KM's from their largest trading partner and only large neighbouring Country. The idea of having zero covid is nonsense while covid exists. Even when there is a vaccine, we will have to live with Covid. NZ won't be able to keep doing what they are doing with regard to borders and quanantine for years so even they will have learn to live with it again.
The majority of tests done are on symptomatic cases even though 80%+ of cases are asymptomatic. Who is ringing their GP to organize for a test if they feel fine? The questions in the Covid app are clearly designed to identify symptomatic cases. Rising case numbers, based on a severely biased sample, does not allow one to deduce that the virus is spreading.
Exactly, and that's the problem. We are ignoring, in the main, the 80% of cases that are asymptomatic. We cannot therefore conclude that because symptomatic cases may be rising that all cases are rising.
It's a fair point. We saw large jumps in case numbers when complete factories were tested including asymtomatic cases. The only reason these people were tested even when they weren't considered close contacts was that the pressure on stopping these clusters was growing. However, these asymptomatic cases might always have been there and just never identified so we can't say for sure that the virus is spreading out of control compared to a month ago...
The sample has always been biased towards the symptomatic.
If we are seeing more symptomatic people testing positive, it is reasonable to conclude that cases are on the rise.
There could be some small scale distortions caused by clusters which lead to testing of asymptomatic people.
But we have always tested asymptomatic close contacts of confirmed cases.
And we have no reason to think that the overall percentages would be significantly different between July & August.
NPHET are quite clear in their briefings about breaking down cases by cluster, community transmission etc
They pay attention to the number of outbreaks as well as the number per outbreak.
It's not 100% definitive, but it seems a reasonable shorthand.
If you can think of some other feasible mechanism that would give a more definitive answer, please explain.
It's a lot more than that though, there are hardly up to 10k symptomatic cases every day? Testing all close contacts of identified cases should capture a lot of the asymptomatic cases.
Yes the figures are 80% mild or asymptomatic. Mild meaning medical treatment not required.
I don't think I've seen figures broken down for those who never develop symptoms.
This article suggests fully asymptomatic is only 30%:
The Cabinet have approved new powers for Gardai to shut down pubs who flout health guidelines.
No new powers re: house parties yet:
The first will allow gardaí to issue a compliance notice to a pub owner, which will ask them to address any issues there.
Gardaí will have two options if this does not happen.
One is to use an Immediate Closure Order that would shut the pub for a day and if this did not occur, the bar's owners would face a fine of up to €2,500 or a six-month prison sentence.
Gardaí will also be able to apply to the District Court for an Emergency Closure Order, which could close a pub for up to 30 days.
www.rte.ie
No new powers re: house parties yet:
The first will allow gardaí to issue a compliance notice to a pub owner, which will ask them to address any issues there.
Gardaí will have two options if this does not happen.
One is to use an Immediate Closure Order that would shut the pub for a day and if this did not occur, the bar's owners would face a fine of up to €2,500 or a six-month prison sentence.
Gardaí will also be able to apply to the District Court for an Emergency Closure Order, which could close a pub for up to 30 days.
Cabinet agree legislation on stronger powers for gardaí
The Cabinet has agreed legislation that would give gardaí the power to shut pubs that are not adhering to public health guidelines.