Situation in Ireland in 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months

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moneymakeover

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Any epidemiologist out there who can predict the situation in Ireland ?

For example,

End of May : full blown crisis with ICU beds maxed out
End of June: cases of covid19 beginning to decline
End of July: people starting to go back to work. Social isolation still being practiced

Jan 2021: things returning to normal
June 2021: vaccine rolled out: safe to venture out unprotected
 
Beyond May or June when we can hope to have passed the peak, the issue will be new sources of infection coming from places where the health service has collapsed.
 
In China now they are returning to work.

Even the levels of unemployment seem low.

That's good news. Only 3 months on.

But I guess for the foreseeable they will continue distancing and masks etc

Perhaps they are more resilient than other populations?

Or more organised/ better technology?
 
moneymakeover said:
In China now they are returning to work.

Even the levels of unemployment seem low.

That's good news. Only 3 months on.

But I guess for the foreseeable they will continue distancing and masks etc

Perhaps they are more resilient than other populations?

Or more organised/ better technology?
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I would tend to lean towards the view that countries which tend to operate under a more totalitarian regime such as China will cope somewhat better with the virus as they will be able to lockdown their populations quicker and much more effectively and the populace won’t rebel as much.
 
I also notice, on subject of testing

In US they are trialling a 1 hour test. That would be a huge advance.

As the head of WHO said: test, test, test.

I don't get the impression the experts in Ireland are with this. Maybe we don't have the volume of test kits.

Sone hse expert on prime time said: a test won't be any use if you don't have the virus... I thought that a bit odd from an expert.

Why can't we manufacture test kits in Ireland?

What about: anyone traveling in public should be stopped and tested?
 
You just cant test everyone. Otherwise you would have to do it every day as it could be negative one day and positive the next. Just not possible and you are using scarce resources. Ireland is one of the highest testers per capita in the world. To be fair, I think our response has been top notch so far. The NHS is close to collapse already and that is without proper testing. We have done a decent job so far at buying time even if it is only weeks.
 
The testing situation is appalling. We’ve friends with the virus. They each were only put forward for testing after a few days of symptoms, when they got worse. Both four days and waiting. GPs of both are certain they have it. Apparently results are taking 3 days after testing to arrive. Of course they are isolating but it matters that the contact tracing doesn’t happen until results are given. It’s crazy. As the who says test test test. Ireland’s plans are being found severely lacking and it’s likely costing lives.
 
DeeKie said:
The testing situation is appalling. We’ve friends with the virus. They each were only put forward for testing after a few days of symptoms, when they got worse. Both four days and waiting. GPs of both are certain they have it. Apparently results are taking 3 days after testing to arrive. Of course they are isolating but it matters that the contact tracing doesn’t happen until results are given. It’s crazy. As the who says test test test. Ireland’s plans are being found severely lacking and it’s likely costing lives.
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The test situation may not be moving as fast as you personally want but we are testing a higher number per head of population than the majority of Europe and are ramping to a much faster daily test rate.

The simple fact is that we aren’t the only country looking to get our hands on large numbers of test kits and the supply is only just starting to catch up to the huge demand.
 
DeeKie said:
The testing situation is appalling.
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It must be extremely stressful for those awaiting test results, but I would not describe the situation as “appalling”.

In fairness, perfect solutions cannot be put in place in days.

According to RTE

“The current wait time for a Covid-19 test is around five days with approximately 40,000 people waiting to be swabbed, the HSE said.

It expects the backlog to be tackled in the coming days.

HSE Chief Executive, Paul Reid, acknowledged there was a delay in people being tested for the Covid-19 virus.

But he said progress had been made with 40,000 kits being distributed at the moment and 20,000 more would be available on Wednesday.

He said the HSE was in advanced negotiations with China to secure another 100,000.

Community testing for the virus will also be increased from Monday.

Across Ireland, 50 test centres have been set up. There are 35 are currently operational including the LE Samuel Beckett which began operating as a test centre on Sir John Rogerson's Quay in Dublin this morning.

The largest centre is at Pairc Ui Chaoimh in Cork, which will be able to test 1,000 people each day.

Mr Reid said in the coming weeks the public would witness the Health system under stress like we had never known before.“


What is appalling however, is people not physically distancing even at this stage.

Yet if infected they would expect ready access to testing or a hospital bed or a ventilator for themselves or their family or their friends whom they recklessly infected.
 
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Brendan Burgess said:
I presume that there is a backlog in the labs as well?
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There is, a number of HSE labs are being repurposed to perform these tests to increase capacity.

There is also an issue with a high false negative rates for tests carried out too early in the infection cycle, so that, along with test kit availability, is likely a reason behind some of the delays in performing tests.
 
According to RTE news an hour ago around 2000 tests per day are being done this week and next week it could be 15000 tests per day. That's quite a favourable jump in prospect.
 
Apparently the delay in processing the tests is taking so long that the sample has expired in some cases. Imagine how you would feel about that if you got tested
 
Yesterday, when the Chief Medical Officer was asked where we were on the curve, he pointed to the start of the increase.

4383


Brendan
 
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Bear in mind that a week or two ago, the success metric for these restrictions was to keep the outbreak to 10k by end of March / early April. I would think they are planning on there being a lot more infections over the coming week or two - especially if there are some cases which are yet to be confirmed through testing.

I'd think the numbers will jump over the coming week and then we'll see if it starts to flatten out
 
Without proper testing data and with such a backlog they don’t know. Knowledge is power and they don’t have much because of testing. I suppose they will have data on deaths.
 
DeeKie said:
Without proper testing data and with such a backlog they don’t know. Knowledge is power and they don’t have much because of testing. I suppose they will have data on deaths.
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They'll possibly also have data on hospital admissions, the number in ICU, etc?
 
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