Coronavirus in Ireland/N Ireland

[beanaseireann]

The first case of Coronavirus has been confirmed in Northern Ireland.
A passenger travelled from Italy to the North via Dublin.
I don't know how we will cope in the Republic if we have large numbers ill with the virus as our health service is already at breaking point.

Crikey we've been doing very little schoolwork. An hour a day if we're lucky. Thankfully our school has sent very little but some parents are a bit raging about that 

Eggs are now my main concern in life. We'll have enough of everything else if we can get eggs (and milk & bread!).

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar I think that's fab - go halfers on a couple of things with mates or neighbours & that would be great. Our neighbours own a pub & I'm half thinking of asking about their suppliers rerouting to our estate in my big quest for regular egg commitment.

So glad we're not the only ones doing the bare minimum, buck. I'm really struggling with school work this week. Dh and I have both been incredibly busy with work this week (me directly due to covid) so the kids have been thrown outside into the garden at every opportunity. The school are really good, keep saying that everything they send is optional, but I still have major guilts.

DD is P6. We are doing 1.5 hours a day of actual work like worksheets, half an hour of educational online games, and half an hour of reading. The rest of the day is stuff like the exercise slot, gardening, making meals, TV and iPad.

That’s the way it works for us without descending into wailing. From me.

I have no idea how people manage any more!

I love the user names on Craicnet.

On a more serious note, we are No. 9 in the world for Deaths per Million Population on Worldometer.
The government have been very proactive with lockdown etc so how did that happen ?

Some countries are fudging their numbers citing underlying reasons as cause of death instead of Covid 19

Nursing Homes.

It seems the vast majority of the deaths have been in nursing homes.

Some are HSE but many are private.

Heard this morning the govt are sending crisis teams into identified Hot Spot nursing homes. Doctors, nurse specialists etc.

One of the things they will be teaching is correct use of PPE!!! Surely to god they should have been taught that already, it's a bit worrying if they haven't been doing it right.

In our hospital we all had to get Covid PPE training very early on. I had mine about 3 weeks ago and had to sign my name that is received it.

We don't know how many NHs were private or public but I bet you anything there'll be a public enquiry after all this is over. Cos the private ones have a governing body so there's no excuse if they were inadequately prepared.

And were they identifying affected patients quick enough? Were they isolating them fast enough? Nursing home residents don't tend to touch each other, and most are in single rooms, so how did transmission happen?

The Irish who man is delighted with us though, so maybe the current strategy will improve the statistics as time goes on.
Dh was reading something about the very elderly people who are dying now would be like to die this year anyway, so the annual death rate won't be skewed. Is that good? I don't think so, losing an elderly relative just now is devastating I'm sure.

Well the other day the median age was 92. So half of them were upwards of that.

Wouldn't take much, in fairness.

Apparently Covid has to be either the primary or secondary cause of death to be counted in ROI.

eggandonion you wrote "The Irish who man is delighted with us though......"

Despite that sentence mystifying many I knew exactly who you were talking about.
When the who man was on telly DH commented, proudly, thst the Irish are everywhere.

Sure we all know him. I know Tony, Luke, cillian and Sam by name.
Bcg which I never had may offer some protection. But surely all health care staff have had it?

Interesting about the BCG. Is that still in the normal vaccine schedule?

I don't have small kids - it wasn't given in Belfast or Cork when my babies were babies. Dh had it in the sixties but I didn't
DD1 had to have it before starting third level, as she is in healthcare - i assume all faculty of medicine students have it? She had antibody tests for some things as well I think? I don't know if this is the case in other countries or just RoI?
It's Luke O'Neill who was tweeting about it, and possibly in Irish Times?

I don't think so Bosco

My sister never got the BCG she had the antibody test in school and they said she didnt need it, that was when it was given in schools. DS is 20 he was given it in the hospital as a baby. I always hated the scar it left.

It's confusing - when I googled - some info is for NHS and some HSE so I'm not sure.

Where was he born? DD2 was born in Cork, but didn't have it although I think it was different in different health boards back then? According to the twitter discussion it hasn't been given since 2015?
But it is the people who had it 1950 - 1990 who should benefit if this is the case, as patients or staff?

They stopped giving BCGs in ROI in mid 2015. My youngest DS was one of the last to have it.

Did anyone else in school in ROI in the 80s/90s have the BCG booster test (where they pricked your skin with a reagent and if it didn’t respond you needed a BCG booster)?

Italy never did mass vaccination using bcg.
Uk stopped in 2005.
France in 2007
Spain in 1981.
Ireland in 2015.
I don't know when Ireland started the mass BCG vaccination programme.

I had that in Belfast in the 1980s, was told I needed a bcg, but my mother told me not to bother as people didn't get tb any more. Thank you mammy, it was about 30 years since mass epidemics, so not ancient history....
My children had to have a certificate of vaccinations received when they went to school in US for a while. They hadn't had bcg, so it mustn't be mandatory there? (There was a query over mmr schedule I think, as it was different).

Watching my 600pound life. It's really sad. Cant help but notice that the people who are feeding the person are all big themselves. I dont know what their thinking behind it is. I'm watching anything to keep my mind off things. I really need to ho shopping and I really dont want to. Didnt go yesterday as I chickened out.

@eggandonion my DS was born in Dublin in 1999.

It must have been a health board decision then? (I can't remember when the HSE was set up). Although school dental clinics still vary a bit don't they?
We watched an extreme hoarding thing a couple of days ago, also as distraction. We have one room full of stuff that was moved six months ago while another room was decorated. We should distract ourselves sorting that, but it's hard to get motivated

Well, on top of being in a Lockdown, I can now add cutting my own hair to the new experiences bucket list.

Being male, it was a case of wanting to do it, wielding a clippers and with a blatant disregard for personal safety as I went at it.

I doubt the Turkish lads I usually go to will be fearing for their jobs but, apart from some small missed bits and a partial scalping over my left temple, it'll do. It's a damn sight tidier than it was before I started.

Now that I'm an expert, I've offered to do the cat as well but he says he's grand and is going to let his grow out.