Northern Ireland v Southern Ireland

[Saoirse7]

Is anyone (especially those in border regions) absolutely perplexed at the stark contrast in advice from the British and Irish governments?

I'm in the north and I am getting more and more worried by the minute as news of regulations of school closures, pub closures etc trickle in. All island organisations such as the GAA have suspended all trainings and matches. Churches have cancelled masses, confirmations and communions. Weddings have been limited to 100 people to allow for social distancing.

Yet here we are, mere miles from each other going about our daily business in two completely different ways. Politics aside, I really believe we need an all island approach. By nature of living on an island we already have the means to control this. I am cared and unnerved at how our parties cannot agree on what to do, this is not a political issue it is a humanitarian one.

The virus will still be there in 2 weeks when the quarantine ends. Ireland only has 166 active cases, they have went far to early with their measures.

As smallplainblonde said, realistically schools will be closed for longer than 2 weeks. I haven't met anybody who thinks our kids will be going back to school in 2 weeks.

Then why hasn't that been said? For the same reason it's not officially been said in the UK how many people will contract and die from this. To avoid panic.

Ireland does not have the number of ICU beds required to cope with large-scale infection. That is the case fr both Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The measures taken in the Republic will not change who contracts the virus, but rather the rate at which they contract it. The slower the rate, the better the outcome is for patients. An over-whelmed health service means needless death, that's what we're trying to avoid.

Zombiefan you might be putting all your faith in the best scientists in the UK but the rest of the world are putting their faith in the best scientists in the world who are advising the WHO. Leo is not burying his head. He is taking a very proactive approach. You keep saying schools in Ireland will be open again in two weeks. I don't know how you know that. The Irish government have said two weeks for now to see how the situation is then but nobody expects them to open in two weeks except you.

Sinn Fein and/or the Republic say white; DUP say black Exactly. I am grateful Leo made a decision without spending months debating it with Arlene.
As long as the DUP stand as part of the UK decisions for as a united Ireland will never be agreed on.

My DC have enough homework to do till Easter, then 3 weeks off, I expect they'll be back after Easter, possibly September.

Can I just say, quite loudly

CAN PEOPLE STOP TALKING ABOUT HERD IMMUNITY AS IF IT IS A VIABLE PLAN

Phew. Even the UK government has admitted that it is NOT A PLAN

@Random18
The hope is to do it slow enough to be enable to NHS to cope as well as it can but not too slow as it runs into the winter months where there are many more additional demands on the NHS.

How will they know? They are limiting testing and so will not have the numbers to know how fast they are going up.

Nobody I've spoken to in the South is expecting the schools to reopen in two weeks. I feel the UK's approach is akin to throwing the elderly/immunocompromised under a bus! Many of them need assistance in their daily lives and self isolation is not always straightforward.

Not according to the WHO or the vast majority of experts
Still no evidence to back up that accusation. The WHO have not said anything critical about the UKs measures.

Why isn't the govt publishing the data that led to their conclusions?
Ummm maybe they are a bit busy defending our country from the actual virus!

Ireland does not have the number of ICU beds required to cope with large-scale infection. That is the case for both Northern Ireland and the Republic
So they are doing the exact same thing as the UK, to delay the peak to give time to prepare hospitals for the onslaught.

the rest of the world are putting their faith in the best scientists in the world who are advising the WHO
Where is the evidence for that. The best scientists in the world do not all keep getting promoted until they end up in the WHO. The UK is quite a repository for the best scientists in the world.

So they are doing the exact same thing as the UK, to delay the peak to give time to prepare hospitals for the onslaught.

No they're not. The plan is not to delay the peak. The plan is to not have a peak. Hospitals can't prepare for an onslaught. They can't magic personnel and physical resources into place on that kind of scale. Delaying the peak is a pointless tactic. The peak is so great, there is no preparing for it.

Lets try this another way. If Ireland's approach has been decided by the worlds best experts at the WHO and therefore the best way forward, then where is the published evidence that closing schools makes a significant different to how this all plays out?

Because from where I am standing it looks like it just made it a hundred times worse for Italy.

The plan is not to delay the peak. The plan is to not have a peak

Oh dear, it sounds like there is no science involved in Leos 'plan' all together. Its almost like he isn't going to hang around for the fall out, oh wait...

I'm in Dublin. I've said it on another thread. I don't give a shit about a united Ireland but we need to be on the same page on this. What is the point in us battening down the hatches when people are crossing back and forth across the border every day to live, work and go to school everyday, with two different sets of rules.

Southern Ireland? Really?

I am very worried for my relatives who live in Ireland and have become pawns in Varadkars head in the sand approach.

Was this meant to be a joke

Leo may not be a scientist though he is a general practitioner. Afaik Spain Italy Ireland and many others are on lockdown.
I think the UK and NI are acting as we were a week ago, in light of the disaster we see in Italy swift action is needed.

Was this meant to be a joke
It was a reverse of a posters comment to show how ridiculous the statement was.

The WHO have not said anything critical about the UKs measures

Yes they have.

Italy implemented its lockdown too late to avoid its hospitals becoming overwhelmed
but hopefully we'll see a slowdown in cases soon

Looking at Wuhtan, it takes about 2 weeks before a lockdown starts to reduce increase in cases
It's not like flicking a switch and then the cases go down

The UK is quite a repository for the best scientists in the world.

That is bollocks. If that were true, other countries would be copying us and not doing the opposite. So many UK scientists are against the UK approach including www.immunology.org/news/bsi-open-letter-government-sars-cov-2-outbreak-response.

I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/15/epidemiologist-britain-herd-immunity-coronavirus-covid-19

Your house is on fire, and the people whom you have trusted with your care are not trying to put it out.

Even though they knew it was coming, and could see what happened to the neighbours as they were overwhelmed with terrifying speed,
the UK government has inexplicably chosen to encourage the flames,
in the misguided notion that somehow they will be able to control them.

When I first heard about this, I could not believe it.

I research and teach the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health.

My colleagues here in the US, even as they are reeling from the stumbling responsee of the Donald Trump administration to the crisis,
assumed that reports of the UK policy were satire
– an example of the wry humour for which the country is famed.
But they are all too real.
...
We talk about vaccines generating herd immunity, so why is this different?
Because this is not a vaccine.
This is an actual pandemic that will make a very large number of people sick,
and some of them will die.

www.standard.co.uk/news/health/uk-herd-immunity-coronavirus-who-margaret-harris-a4387346.html

Zombie you really are delusional.

The WHO is advising countries to take urgent, drastic action and the UK is doing the opposite. Dr Margaret Anne Harris of the WHO told BBC R4 yesterday that the UK plan is based on an untested theory and is not sound.

You don't impose a lockdown and see cases magically reduce overnight. The incubation of the virus is up to 14 days. We know this from China. See where Italy is in two weeks time.

Time will tell, it won't be a long wait unfortunately.

I couldn't be less surprised. We went over 1000 days with no government, afterall. Of course we'd be a shit show when things actually got difficult.

What's also pissing me off are most of the clubs/bars in Belfast posting on their social media that they're still open. Honestly . A packed, dirty nightclub does not need to be open during a bloody pandemic. I feel awful for the staff on 0 hr contracts who are being dragged in. I'm so grateful I left my bar job years ago.

@ZombieFan , don't give a shit who's got the right approach. They need to be doing the same thing.
Geography. That's it.

A lot of schools in the North taking it into their own hands and are closing.