Ireland's Calling for Normal Life to Return, thread number 5

[eggandonion]

Unlinked because I can't remember how to do it, and can't find Help thing.

@CherryValanc that must be so hard. Sorry to hear that.

@IsFuzzyBeagMise

I'm in SuperValu. Spent some time in the Polish aisle looking at the different food and pretending I'm on holiday.

That’s a brilliant idea. God Bless the international foods aisle.

I’ve been following along on a map when I watch furrin TV .

32 million people in the UK to be vaccinated by May, we prob only need to vacinate 3 million here or under..... How is this not veru possible or is it really all just a supply issue?
A gp on the radio this morning talking about how in other countries they gave enlisted anyone and everyone who can administrator vaccines including vets and yet no way can we do this here! Why is everything so much harder here? Also reading in the paper re cervical smear scandals, how can so many samples have been misread in labs and is this just an Irish problem, do they have the same scandals in other countries? I know of several friends who are skipping their smears as no confidence in the system.

I know I'm being negative but so so sick of this country and how everyone just accepts how crap it is run.

Sooverthis1
"..... so so sick of this country and how everyone just accepts how crap it is run."

This in spades.

My grandmother (south west) has been called for her vaccine now. Got a letter last week to confirm she wants it and will get an appt this week.

Stephen Donnelly just said September date for all adults vaccinated was a "direction we were going in".🙄
I wish he was asked why we are so far behind the UK in the vaccination stakes.

"Direction we are going in' so, so vague. We have a tiny population, its insane how its going go take so long . .

Is anyone in the uk publishing statistics on second vaccines being given? Because I have an elderly relative who had her first dose a few weeks ago, but no idea when the next one is. And her siblings are in the same position.

My 20 year student niece in the UK has been called for her vaccine as she is clinically vulnerable (not shielding or anything ) so we are delighted . She may be vaccinated before her 90 year old granny in Ireland . UK has f**cked up so much about this pandemic but the vaccinations are racing along

I’m having my second dose next Sunday, I got the appointment date via text about a week after my first dose.

Daily Data here

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

It remain to be seen whether it makes a noticeable difference if there's a big gap between first and second doses. It's good that we're giving both doses fairly quickly but the rollout overall does seem so slow. My friend works in a GP surgery and she said the vaccine is so fragile that the rules around handling it and storing it makes them so nervous, that's before they even get into the nitty gritty of administering it We just don't have a good track record for managing big projects so I'm not surprised this is all taking so long to get going. Surely the logistics and planning could have been ironed out since last year?? It's not like we didn't know we'd need to implement a national vaccination strategy? It's ridiculous. I just hope that by the end of the year everyone who needs it has got it. But I'm not filled with confidence to be honest.

My friend is a nurse and has had both doses now. She was quite ill after the second dose though, very flu-like symptoms all her glands were up and she was wiped out for a few days.

I'm hoping that I am off work when I eventually get called so I can have a few days to recover. I need my bloods taken too but I have no idea when that'll be.
Watching the rugby now.

[quote Iblinkedandiamold]@CherryValanc that must be so hard. Sorry to hear that.[/quote]
Yes it's horrible. I'm used to not seeing my parents frequently but it's been 15 months now!!

On the vaccine side I've things - a lot of my cousins (in Ireland) are nurses and are all fully vaccinated.

My parents and my sister (vulnerable) have had their first doses.

@eggandonion it's about 3 months between first and second dose in the UK

I've read (in a science publication) that people experience more of a reaction after the second dose. I'll try find it again, as there's different reactions depending if it's a mRNA or vector vaccine.

Yes more of a reaction to second dose and also a worse reaction if you’ve recently had Covid .

The media in Ireland is also so negative there's no mention of anything ever going back to normal. I even read a heading that was along the lines of vaccine efforts will be undermined by people travelling into Ireland... why oh why are people travelling here if we can't even go 5km up the road and what heading when in a population of probably only 3 million to vaccinate (kids and young plp probably not a priority yet) they've barely made a start.

I was looking online to see when preschool was going back and couldn't find anything recent, only old ones from when we were meant to open at the beginning of Feb. It's all very strange. It's a sort of limbo really. We never know for sure what it happening until a few days before.

Why is everything so much harder here? Also reading in the paper re cervical smear scandals, how can so many samples have been misread in labs and is this just an Irish problem, do they have the same scandals in other countries? I know of several friends who are skipping their smears as no confidence in the system.

This is not just an Irish problem. It's been well established now that Ireland performs to international standards regarding cervical smear testing. Very unfortunately false negatives are something that can't, at present, be eliminated. This is true worldwide. (Reducing false negatives means increasing false positives, which is also bad, so some sort of balance has to happen.) The Cervical Check scandal in Ireland was primarily a result of abysmal communication to women by Cervical Check, though there remains widespread misunderstanding about this. Many still believe that test results were deliberately withheld as women's cancers developed unchecked. This is not true.

Most cases of precancerous cell change will be picked up by repeated screening so it would be advisable for your friends to continue with their smear tests Sooverthis1. Tragically some women will not be identified as being at risk, but most will. So it's in everyone's best interest to get smear tests, but, unfortunately, there are no guarantees.

We were in Scotland about 4 years ago, and waiting for a ferry. Listening to radio report on a surgeon who had done mastectomy on numerous healthy breasts. It sounded exactly like a scandal we would have had.
I don't think we are doing any worse than anywhere else in Europe. Everywhere is grim.
It was a nice afternoon here, almost like Spring. Almost a year since Leo made his speech.

Guards at the airport criminalising people is a deflection from the shambolic vaccine roll out. A friend of mine working in a hse general hospital had to do an interview to become a vaccinator. Now has to go thru the hoops with HR. Thats with the Ireland East Hospital group !- interview last Friday
Like I am completely despairing of the roll out. The garda commissioner on The late late- was his journey absolutely essential. Fair play to the Uk roll out. Im just waiting for Gardai at the border once NI opens up. They are on over 400kdoses

I mean we have vaccines. Get them into people !! Fgs. To add my nurse friend has every vaccination course done in readiness to vaccinate. Crazy

Yes.

Or at the very least some transparency on why there is a delay.

Part of the delay is the decision not to use az on older people, and the difficult method of storage of Pfizer and modena. I know several people who are now taking elderly parents to be vaccinated.
Health care workers seem to be having the az vaccine, in January they were have Pfizer. Az takes three weeks to offer 65 percent protection, and it's something like a 12 week schedule.
I have a friend teaching in a healthcare discipline who reckons the big game changer will be the Johnson and Johnson one shot, which is easy to store and use.

Eggandonion sums it up well.

It has been a long stretch.

At least the sun is shining.