Skip to main content

Ireland is riding the wave! In a BAD BAD way!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller

21,926 new infections today and that is not even the highest number in the current wave. But for tiny Ireland it is a HUGE number! A good reality check is always to compare it to other countries assuming that Ireland was their size, so let’s have a look how we fare:

Let’s pick some of the worst affected countries in Europe and the USA. The list below shows their respective population and also the factor with which we need to multiply the Irish cases):

Ireland (4,937,786) Factor 1
Germany (83,783,942) Factor 16.97
France (65,273,511) Factor 13.22
Spain (46,754,778) Factor 9.47
Italy (60,461,826) Factor 12.24
UK (67,886,011) Factor 13.75
USA (331,002,651) Factor 67.03

Applying this multiplication factor to the Irish new cases number will get us this:
If Ireland was the size of……. we would have……..cases.

Ireland 21,926
Size of Germany 372,084
Size of France 289,861
Size of Spain 207,639
Size of Italy 268,374
Size of UK 301,482
Size of USA 1,469,699

21,926 is a BIG number of daily cases but when we look at absolute number we could think that it is not sooo serious. But let’s now compare the “if Ireland was the size of…” numbers with the REAL numbers and I picked the highest number from the other countries from the last three days. (All data taken from Worldometers.info)

Ireland 21,926
Size of Germany 372,084 — ACTUAL number: 63,191
Size of France 289,861 — ACTUAL number: 261,481
Size of Spain 207,639 — ACTUAL number: 137,180
Size of Italy 268,374 — ACTUAL number: 219,434
Size of UK 301,482 — ACTUAL number: 194,709
Size of USA 1,469,699 — ACTUAL number: 751,512

If you compare these figures, Ireland is doing ATROCIOUSLY bad! The numbers here are higher than in ALL the “badly affected” countries above.

But maybe the other countries had their peak at an earlier time and Ireland is just a little behind!? Possible, right?

So here are the highest numbers ever of these countries, compared to today’s Irish rate if Ireland was the size of these countries. And the result is SHOCKING!

Ireland 21,926
Size of Germany 372,084 — HIGHEST number: 79,051
Size of France 289,861 — HIGHEST number: 322,894
Size of Spain 207,639 — HIGHEST number: 137,180
Size of Italy 268,374 — HIGHEST number: 219,434
Size of UK 301,482 — HIGHEST number: 218,705
Size of USA 1,469,699 — HIGHEST number: 1,018,935

(Spain has reported 372,766 cases on 03 Jan, but since they accumulate the cases from the last three days in that number, I left this week’s number as the highest.)

The only country that EVER had a higher number of new cases than today’s Irish case numbers is France.

We were all shocked when we heard about the 1 million cases in the USA, but if you put in in proportion to the numbers in Ireland, then the USA is doing quite well. We are significantly worse than the UK or the USA, but we shake our heads over the situation across the water to the East and the West.

And compare the Irish numbers to Germany!?!?! How can Ireland do THAT bad?

What went wrong? Why is Ireland doing sooo badly? Did the government and NPHET totally fail us? Are they absolutely useless in the current situation? A shower of useless %&*$§?

Or are they guilt free and all blame is with us, the people who live in Ireland and party and meet up like it is 2019?

And WHY do our media outlets (or the opposition parties) not run comparisons like the one above to show how badly Ireland fares and then demand answers from the people in charge?

And it gets worse! The Irish Times reported on 06 Jan in an article entitled “Tens of thousands of infections not captured in official figures” that since the beginning of December at least 380,000 maybe even up to 500,000 were not captured, according to official figures. So with 31 days in December that means that the daily new cases were underreported by between 12,000 and 16,000 cases. And that means we could have DOUBLE the currently reported numbers. SHOCKING!

Corona Virus, Covid-19, Health System, Politics, Society, ,

Ireland is in much worse position than people think…

Written by Joerg Steegmueller

The number of infected people is steadily growing again for the last two months or so. In Ireland this is happening despite the very high vaccination rate of well above 90% of the adult population and the only answer that doctors and politicians have, is to insist that people have to show their vaccination certificates and that they should get vaccinated more.

Vaccinations clearly help with SOMETHING as the number of deaths is lower than previously. But people can only die once. So when the people that were in the highest danger of dying from Covid are dead, then they can’t die a second time and naturally, the death rate will drop. Based on the infection numbers we see, it seems that the 90+% vaccination rate is possibly having much less an impact on that metric than people were told it would have.

On 04 Nov, the daily infections was reported as 3024 new cases (www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/1104/1257803-covid-ireland/), that is a small number if you compare to the world and there are many people in Ireland who don’t think this number is a cause of worry. But let’s put it in perspective!

Ireland is TINY, so therefore the numbers are small-ish. Ireland has 5,011,588 inhabitants. Germany has 84,142,708 inhabitants. That is a factor 16.79.

In Germany the authorities are close to panic station, because today 34,000 new cases were reported and RTE (possibly with some level of glee) reported the news here www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/1104/1257971-covid-transmission-europe/

3,024 vs 34,000 seems very clear! Ireland: good! Germany: Bad!

But let’s look at the real figures. With Germany being 16.79 times the size of Ireland. this would mean that Ireland – if it was the size of Germany – would have reported 50,370 new cases. FIFTY THOUSAND!

So now, how does the comparison look like?

Germany-sized Ireland: 50,370 vs Germany-sized Germany: 34,000

Anybody still think Ireland is in a good position?

Corona Virus, Covid-19, Elsewhere, Overexaggerations, ,

It is official: NPHET, Tony Holohan and Philip Nolan have no clue!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller

What a bunch of clowns! NPHET are allegedly the Covid “experts” in Ireland and a Dr Tony Holohan, aka Chief Medical Officer, and a Prof Philip Nolan, who heads the statisticians and modellers that tried to predict the spread of the Coronavirus, are two of NPHET’s main voices. And both have been declared as incompetent by people that know a lot more about a subject Holohan and Nolan felt they needed to give their unqualified opinion about.

The subject is Antigen Self-Tests, which are inexpensive tests for home use that many experts and government organisations see for a long time as a key instrument to stop the spread of Covid. A test costs just EUR 5 and will tell you if you are infectious (something the PCR test can’t tell!) within about 15 minutes.

In Germany the Department of Health has negotiated with suppliers to secure the availability of 130 million self tests. Self-tests are now available through pharmacies and also in supermarkets and it is recommended to test at least twice a week.

Self-tests are made available for free in the UK and, for example, parents of school kids are asked to test themselves and their kids regularly because self-tests are an essential part of the pandemic strategy. You can order up to 2 packs of 7 at a time online for free on a government website and per week around 28 mio tests are given out.

The Centre of Disease control in the USA said on 07 May that U.S.-bound international air travelers can meet COVID-19 entry requirements using self-tests. (www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/cdc-says-us-bound-travelers-can-use-some-self-covid-19-tests-2021-05-07/)

And the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is recommending that rapid antigen testing can help reduce the spread of the virus in high-risk indoor workplaces and should be used to complement other tests. (www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/stop-spread-could-diagnostic-antigen-tests-help-control-covid-19-transmission)

Closer to home, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of Ireland, Professor Mark W. J. Ferguson, is heading the “COVID-19 Rapid Testing Group”, that was put together by the Irish Government. And this group already said on 19 March 2021 in the section “Start Immediately” that “It is very important to initiate rapid testing programmes now.” The report looks at the all aspects of rapid tests and clearly comes to the conclusion that rapid tests, which includes self-tests, should be made available in Ireland to complement all other measures. www.gov.ie/en/publication/f50f0-report-of-the-covid-19-rapid-testing-group/

This report has been published by the government and is definitely available to NPHET, but they seemingly can’t read:

On Fri 07 May, in the daily “NPHET show” (which should have been stopped by the government a long long time ago.) Tony Holohan warned against the use of antigen tests and he went so far to even say that consumers should not buy antigen testing kits due to the risk of false results and amazingly, Holohan claimed “Their use poses a “real risk” to the pandemic response.” So CDC, ECDC, German and UK Health Ministers are supporting what poses a “real risk” to the pandemic response?? (www.irishtimes.com/news/health/nphet-warns-public-against-relying-on-antigen-tests-being-sold-in-supermarkets-1.4558458)

On 08 May, then Philip Nolan claimed in a tweet that Covid Self-tests are “snake oil”, which is even worse than saying they are useless and which also is totally incorrect and actually a dangerous statement. (twitter.com/President_MU/status/1391095650750709769?s=20)

Clearly Holohan and Nolan are either wiser than international experts… or they are incompetent clowns!

To help us assess this, let’s listen to Professor Dr. Michael Mina, an Epidemiologist, Immunologist and Physician at Harvard Public Health/Medical School. He replied to Philip Nolan’s tweet and has this opinion:

“For an advisor to your government – you don’t appear to know what you are talking about wrt rapid tests. […] You should be ashamed of your demeanor here.”

Irish Journalist Philip Nolan (same name, but different person than the misguided Professor) commented on the tweet with “My sister in the UK had five sent to her by the NHS. Is the NHS a snake-oil sales organisation, or are you just pissed off a supermarket is doing more than you are?”

With all facts considered, the tweet by Prof Philip Nolan was incompetent, ignorant and arrogant. This tweet and Tony Holohan’s warning to stay away from these tests reveals that the two “leading experts” in Ireland either have no clue or – and that would be worse – have a vested interest in only recommending PCR tests.

Nobody would claim that the self-tests are perfect but nobody is either suggesting that they shouldn’t be anything else but a COMPLEMENT to other strategies. And as such a complement, NPHET should help educating the public about their use and how best to use these tests and NOT use their personal aversion to inappropriately disparage these tests.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly and Tanaiste Leo Varadkar would be well advised in replacing Tony Holohan and Philip Nolan after this revelation of clear incompetence and instead trust people like the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government Professor Mark W. J. Ferguson.

—-

And to give a little bit more detail about what Holohan and Nolan got so upset about:

Supermarket chain Lidl is selling Rapid Antigen self-tests since this week. The tests are manufactured by Xiamen Boson Biotech Co and are called “Rapid SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Test Card” with CE mark and with completed validation studies carried out in Germany. They are in the EU’s list of approved tests (ec.europa.eu/health/sites/default/files/preparedness_response/docs/covid-19_rat_common-list_en.pdf) and have an impressive 93.8% sensitivity and a 100% specificity.

The tests are available in Lidl Ireland for about EUR 25 for 5 tests.

——

Update (10 May):
With additional posts, Prof Dr Michael Mina has made an attempt per Twitter to school Philip Nolan on the meaning of “test sensitivity”, on the shortfalls of PCR tests and on the importance to detect infectiousness in a public health context. But he also is sensing something MUCH MUCH more relevant. In his last tweet he wrote “Your comments are squarely at odds with the science and appear to instead be motivated by something else.” (twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1391636626250604546?s=20)
Now Health Minister Stephen Donnelly just HAS to step in and take action!

Corona Virus, Covid-19, Health System, Taoiseach, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Questionable Hotel Quarantine in Ireland – The mess gets worse!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller

The Irish government getting into this deeper and deeper and the mess is getting worse and worse. The 12-day Hotel Quarantine from Level 2 countries (Countries with high-risk status because of Covid infections) is allegedly to protect Ireland from travellers who are carrying the virus into Ireland.

Oddly it was decided that no testing is enough, people from 33 countries have to quarantine even if they had negative PCR tests from before they left and from after arriving in Ireland. The 33 countries are a weird collection of mainly poorer countries with only one single European country among them. Austria seemed to get little love from the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, because they found themselves on this strange list.

But it is getting worse and worse. On Thursday 01 April (allegedly not April Fool’s joke!) another 26 countries were added to the list. The countries are
Albania, Andorra, Aruba, Bahrain, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, Ethiopia, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Oman, Palestine, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Saint Lucia, San Marino, Serbia, Somalia and Wallis and Futuna Islands.

Isn’t that a strange list again? Bonaire? Sint Eustatius and Saba (I don’t even have a clue where that is!) or Wallis and Futuna Islands??

For a moment, let’s assume that they are super dangerous Covid countries. A silly idea, but let’s assume:
I am not sure if you have learned the arrivals information of Dublin airport off by heart, but I BET that you will have never seen Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba or Wallis and Futuna Islands on the arrivals screen. And if there is no direct flight then every passenger coming from there might or might not actually come from there and definitely will have to pass through some other country which is then the actual country the passenger is deemed to have come from. So without direct flights, the inclusion of these countries already doesn’t make sense.

But now let’s have a look at their population and Covid situation.
Bonaire has 20,100 inhabitants, Sint Eustatius and Saba have 3,138 and 1,933 inhabitants and the Wallis and Futuna Islands have 11,500 inhabitants.

Well, it turns out that Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba are three different islands that are together called “Caribbean Netherlands” and together they 1,462 cases and 12 deaths. That is 54,112 cases per 1 mio population and 417 deaths per 1mil population. Interestingly, the Netherlands, which are NOT on the list, have 75867 cases per 1 mio and they have 968 deaths per 1 mio. (All figures are from the start of the pandemic.) Ireland has 946 deaths per 1 mio.

So Caribbean Netherlands are on the quarantine list, but the Netherlands are not?  Why would that be? Ohhh, the Netherlands are in the EU and Caribbean Netherlands not!?

And you probably guessed that Wallis and Futuna are not looking too bad either. 37,000 cases per 1 mio and 361 deaths per 1 mio. (Their total number of deaths is actually just 4.) A THIRD of the deaths per 1 mio than Ireland, but Wallis and Futuna are a danger zone!!! VERY odd!

So how do they compare with some of the European countries? In all cases, the first number is the cases per 1 mio and the second number is the deaths per 1 mio.
France        72,523 / 1,473
Italy            60,088 / 1,827
Germany   34,200 / 922
Spain        70,376 / 1,615
UK              63,878 / 1,861

and just for comparison again:

Caribbean Netherlands 54,112 / 454
Wallis and Futuna 37,000 / 361

That quarantine list makes sense, right??? NOT!!!!!!!!

There is a slight weakness in the numbers above: I used total number of cases and total number of deaths since March 2020 as provided by www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries and it is possible that the Covid activity right now appears to be a lot higher and it was averaged out over the year. But if there is a TOTAL of 4 deaths it doesn’t look MADLY dangerous.

An interesting article here www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0401/1207372-quarantine-donnelly/ describes that Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney got France, Germany and Italy taken off the list for POLITICAL reasons.

So if anyone claims that the hotel quarantine measures are there to protect Ireland, they are wrong. IF that was the intention then every country that currently has any Covid cases should be on the list. No matter where this country is! And then country by country should be checked and taken off the list if the cases/deaths numbers are below a clearly defined and publicised threshold.

The list is a purely political list that shows even a degree of xenophobia and discrimination towards poorer countries and countries we have less contact with. The UK should DEFINITELY be on the list. The USA should be! Estonia and a few other Eastern European countries seem to struggle with Covid in a bad way right now and that would justify putting them on it.

And then the RTE article adds another component:
“Speaking on Highland Radio today, Mr Coveney said: “This is primarily about Irish people coming home … should we be putting them into a hotel and charging them for the privilege?””

Ohh, so the list is NOT to protect against a virus, but it really is just to keep foreigners out? Or rather: If it affects our own, then we can’t expect them to pay for a stupid hotel quarantine that won’t make any difference anyway. But if it is foreigners from Wallis and Futuna or from Brazil or South Africa, then we let them bleed?

And finally: The first thing that should have been done IF it was about a virus, is to close the border to Northern Ireland, because you can STILL fly into Belfast and drive to Dublin to avoid the Hotel Quarantine completely.

Smoke, screen and mirrors!!! Do not trust any politician or any NPHET member. There are hidden agendas everywhere.

Corona Virus, Covid-19, Odd, Politics, Tourism, , , , , , , , , , ,

Lockdowns probably don’t work!?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller

During the week I found and read a really interesting book. It is called “Covid: Why most of what you know is wrong” by Swedish Medical Doctor Sebastian Rushworth. The book is available in the Kindle Unlimited Programme or as a Paperback on Amazon here amzn.to/3ujx7Br
Rushworth explains first what happened in Sweden, then provides a lot of detail about the statistics and methods of calculation and about the science behind what we are told in this pandemic and all the time explains why we are fed wrong information. It is a REALLY interesting book that I would recommend to everyone who keeps reading news about what is happening for the last 12 months.

One of the suggestions he is explaining is that lockdowns do not help to reach the main target and that governments and “experts” are actually focusing on the wrong target. The right target is to avoid deaths, not to avoid infections! Infections will happen and infections in healthy people are no big problem. The obsession with number of infected people is completely distracting from the main target and gets governments to do stupid things, like total lockdowns that are not substantially helping to reduce the number of deaths.

But this is only one aspect of the book. There is a lot more in it and if you check out the description on the Amazon Page (amzn.to/3ujx7Br) you will get the full picture. Importantly, Rushworth does NOT subscribe to any conspiracy theories, but explains every one of his points with publicly available scientific research.

Definitely worth a read if you don’t want to be lied to and especially if you have a Kindle Unlimited plan do NOT hesitate and check the book out as soon as possible!

(If you don’t have a Kindle Unlimited plan you can sign up for a free 30 day trial – assuming you are eligible – here www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-dbs/hz/signup?tag=dubeveguiforf-21 Kindle books can be read on your computer or on your mobile phone or tablet, you do NOT need a Kindle for it.)

Corona Virus, Covid-19, Media, Politics, ,
 
Malcare WordPress Security