You only live twice
I see New Zealand has beaten the Virus again?
Now I know I am getting on in years and maybe my knife is no longer the sharpest in the drawer but I find this a bit of an oxymoron?
By my feeble understanding, to beat someone [or something] means to win. The contest is over. The opponent is no longer a threat. It’s the end of the fight. So to beat someone [or something] again surely means that the initial victory was purely in the mind of the victor? You can’t eradicate something twice. You can’t die twice.
Sadly our health professionals can’t seem to grasp the concept that the Virus cannot be beaten. I suppose in theory if every single person on the planet was isolated for a fortnight the Virus actually would cease to exist [along with the world’s population who have all now died of thirst] but it only takes one infected person to start the whole circus all over again.
Out mob here in Ireland certainly seem to be under the impression that they can achieve the impossible. They want us to go into total lockdown once more or, as they prefer to call it now, Level 5. I knew we’d have trouble once they had “levels” to play with, just like naming the wind.
Doctors are like any other profession – they tend to see the worst. Car mechanics only see faulty cars. Computer technicians only see faults and viruses. It’s only natural for doctors to only see life from their perspective, so I don’t really blame them. It’s their job to make people well again.
But they do need to step back and take a look at the wood and forget about individual trees.
Your last big para re doctors.
I can see these guys, like tradesmen you have called in to fix a previous tradesman's work, facing our great leaders, shaking heads, pursing lips and sucking in air through clenched teeth.
"Well surr, this going to be difficult. Whoever did you get to do this last lockdown for you? He made a right arse of it.
What you really need is a ……….(insert any crackpot idea you can think of.
But it won't be cheap."
Thats twice they have beaten it.They have all advantages end of line for travellers closed borders yet as soon as they relax up it pops.In Europe we are somehow going have to exist with it or our economies are bust.We are getting a traffic light system not clear yet whether all instructions run together.The great and good are slowly but surely loosing the plot.
I'm trying to find out if I'm free to travel to Tristan da Cunha. I believe it's lovely at this time of year but I can't find it on their lists.
So far other than a couple of very questionable cases once you have been exposed to COVID 19 and you have recovered, you are immune. The pandemic will end once the majority of people have been exposed and are now immune. This is commonly called herd immunity Getting the majority of people a vaccine would also work. While a vaccine may be available in late 2020 or earl 2021, it will probably be a year or more before it is widely available. Ironically if it were not for all of measures to slow the spread of the virus we probably would have achieve herd immunity by now. But people will die! Yes they will die and they will die even with the measures to slow down the spread. It will just take longer. Let me repeat that, the same number of people will die, but it will take longer. There will be fewer deaths per day, but the death totals will be the same. The only argument for social distancing and isolation was to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed with a large number of patients. We are past that issue, bt the lockdowns continue.
We are now at DEFCON 1.
Hang a mo. Why do the Irish nutters supposedly on the Irish bridge as it were use the DEFCON system in reverse?
Really desperately need to develop an alterative system of governance so we never allow these people anywhere near the levers of power ever again.
I live in New Zealand and no ,we have not beaten it. Because all the borders are closed,we are only accepting returning residents and these are immediately put in quarantine for 14 days. Every case in the past few weeks has come from someone returning from overseas.All the government has succeeded in doing is keeping the lid on it. Most of the tourist industry is in trouble as there only domestic trippers and what the fruit growers are going to do in e few weeks time has not yet been thought about.
The one flaw in the New Zealand argument espoused by our Glorious Gubmint is that they overlook the fact that we have an open land border with another country and even worse, a country where the Virus is running rampant.
It's no coincidence that two of the most infected counties [Donegal and Monaghan] border the North!
I'd be inclined to trust old Dr. Feeley on this (kindly introduced by your good self). "You cannot eliminate this disease," (27:03) he said during that Prime Time session with Miriam O'Callaghan and McConkey on 29th September. I took the liberty of recording it. It'll be unavailable for replay in 22 days. I would add that I don't think humankind is supposed to eliminate the disease. It's a challenge, requiring the rise of sense. But, if sense rises, a lot of things will collapse, such as considering induced abortion (a euphemism for killing someone in a particular way) acceptable under some circumstances, 50 million such circumstances occurring annually globally (http://bit.ly/34VRbg4). And much else. Roll on cunning Covid. Keep pushing. That it may intubate me I consider a risk on par with the danger posed by the roaring main road next to my house – quite high, but I've survived 18 years of the latter, so don't care.
McConkey is a right miserable git. In his very narrow view of the world, the only problem standing between us and Nirvana is the Virus. It has to be completely eradicated at any cost even if it means locking the world's entire population into individual rooms. Apparently he is now arguing that Ireland should be at a "Level" higher than a total lockdown.
And he'll probably terrify people enough to get his way. However, I noted that Varadkar said, when interviewed by Claire Byrne on Monday (5th), RTÉ, and answering regarding NPHET: "… very good people. 40 of them. But all coming from medical or scientific or civil service backgrounds. None of those people, for example, would have faced being [put] on the pandemic unemployment payment yesterday. None of them would have to tell somebody that they're losing their job. And none of them would have had to shutter a business for the last time. And I am not talking about the economy. I am talking about something that could have happened to half a million human beings tomorrow [time of NPHET's proposed start of "Level 5", which the government overruled] …" – 11:47, https://bit.ly/36NQXfC. So, some hope there. I am convinced that, bit by bit, sense will rise.
Dear Grandad
Level 11?
DP