The government has removed Covid-19 travel restrictions after lifting public health restrictions along with similar moves in the UK and elsewhere. It’s a definite move to garner support for a pandemic-weary public, but, as infection numbers are on the rise again, some researchers believe it’s an illusion and a health hazard. public health is at risk.
Governments here and elsewhere, arguably don’t want to listen to the real concerns that high-risk groups, groups that represent them, and many doctors have about where the strategy “lives” with Covid” is bringing us to.
The outbreak of war in Ukraine made these voices even more difficult to hear.
The number of hospitals for Covid-19 here broke 1,000 cases in January – the second in the pandemic – before falling back and leveling off around 600 cases through February. As of March 7, number rapidly increased to 808 cases.
In the US, many scientists and medical professionals are calculating the time when, scientifically speaking, Covid-19 could be called an endemic disease, meaning it has bottomed out and the pandemic is over.
They estimate that this pandemic will become a pandemic in the US when there are fewer than 100 Covid-19 deaths per day.
In that way, Ireland is not endemic. We are seeing about eight deaths a day based on the average of the past seven days, which, when adjusted for population, equates to 528 deaths in the United States. Ireland’s mortality rate is, by this calculation, more than five times the rate considered endemic.
There are other metrics to support this. For example, scientists in the US also believe that for Covid-19 to be endemic, there must be fewer than 30 cases per day per 100,000 population. In Ireland we are still hitting a daily case count of around 2,500 which is 50 cases per day per 100,000.
Ending restrictions now may make political sense, but with such figures showing that Covid-19 is not an endemic disease, the Irish Government’s adoption of a “give up” policy Putting the elderly, immunocompromised and unvaccinated people at serious risk is irresponsible. . Unvaccinated people also deserve protection.
Not so long ago, it was considered a crisis if The number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 is more than 500 people, but this week we break 800 people again. The big plus is that the numbers in the ICU have dropped, with Omicron proving to be less severe than Delta. This is the main reason given to end the mandatory wearing of masks in the home and proof of vaccination.
The biggest fear among politicians here and elsewhere is that the number of ICUs will grow to the point where the health system is overwhelmed. That threat has lessened – for now at least – but that doesn’t mean we’ve given up on virus monitoring and testing. We still have the risk of new variants emerging, and only through increased monitoring and testing – not giving up on them – can we be ready to react quickly when the next rally occurs.
The government must actively push to keep the number of cases to a minimum and not accept the numbers we have as “normal”.
Even if the number of ICUs decreases, about 10pc where the pediatric ICU is and about 20pc where the adult ICU is compared to Covid-19. A disease is sucking up resources in an already overstretched system.
No one is sure what the cost of the new “Covid waiver” policy will be in terms of economic costs and costs of death and illness.
Life expectancy will most likely be affected, with some scientists saying three years will wipe out our lives, while others suggest it could be much higher due to neurological effects.
The cost of giving up will only become apparent once the impact has worn off, by which time it will be too late to do anything about it.
We know very little about the lingering effects of Covid or the consequences of spreading the infection to our children maybe. It would be prudent and reasonable to apply the “precautionary principle” we are used to seeing in other areas such as the rigorous testing of new drugs before they are put on the market.
For Covid-19, simply giving up is not an option, no matter how tired we are.
Instead of selling us an “endemic illusion” and seeking short-term political gain, our leaders should implement a strategy to prevent the next increase, increase surveillance and testing, ramping up efforts to immunize more people at home and abroad through the World Health Organization (WHO) and funding sustained Covid research in children and adults.
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/by-ending-covid-restrictions-now-political-leaders-are-suffering-an-endemic-delusion-41429589.html By ending Covid restrictions now, political leaders are suffering from an ‘endemic delusion’
