The notion, still widely held, that Ireland will be able to return to normality without the mother and father of all battles, took a very big hit yesterday. In the face of all the available international evidence, the Irish Government instead decided to rely on a black box model from NPHET – which nobody can scrutinise – and chose to continue with lockdown restrictions indefinitely.
Indefinitely is an important word. The Government’s spin, in an attempt to make us all feel a little better, is that they will “look” at easing restrictions – for vaccinated people only – on July 19th. In truth, there is no date now on which they plan to open the country up fully. We are only two months away from the re-opening of schools, which will provide the next excuse for delay. And then, as Autumn and Winter approach, and cases of respiratory infection – covid and others – naturally rise, it will again be too dangerous to ease restrictions. With yesterday’s decision, any hope of a full re-opening before 2022 died. With it, too, the confidence of any reasonable person in this Government should have died as well.
The public are not permitted to know what data, exactly, goes into NPHET’s infamous model. We do know, though, what came out of it: Re-opening indoor hospitality, they said, would lead to 700,000 cases of the Delta variant in Ireland over the next eight weeks. 13,000 people, they declared, would end up in hospital. 2,000 would die.
All of this can be prevented, they advised, in a claim that stretches credulity, by delaying the return of indoor hospitality.
To say that those figures are a nonsense would be to be much too kind. As Robert Burke points out:
https://twitter.com/robertburke84/status/1409810389609635842
Because we do not know what data gets inputted to the NPHET model, we can only ask questions. One obvious question, for example, is this: What assumptions does the model make about the efficacy of vaccines against the Delta variant? We know, because we have listened to them say so, that various people in NPHET are sceptical that the vaccines are effective against the variant. The international evidence, so far, suggests that scepticism is wrong. But can we be sure that it is not built into NPHET’s model? We cannot, is the answer, because the model is not available for others to comment on, or review. With any model, garbage in becomes garbage out. In this case, we can see the garbage coming out, but not what is going in. Every single journalist and opposition politician should be demanding that this data is made public.
The evidence against the hospitalisation and death figures cited by NPHET does not come from a model. It comes from live, real-world data. Consider the case of the UK:
cases in the uk yesterday were the highest they’ve been since january 31…
…but daily deaths right now are around 98% lower than they were then
— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) June 29, 2021
In fact, the official UK data, which is linked here, cites the official Delta Variant Case Fatality rate at 0.1% – one death in a thousand. Yet, despite that real world data, NPHET has managed to produce figures claiming 2,000 deaths per 700,000 cases – a case fatality rate almost three times higher than what they are recording in the UK, where deaths are very low.
Last night, indeed, at about the time our hapless, clueless, cowardly Taoiseach was briefing the nation on the reasons why Irish people must remain locked up indefinitely, the British public were watching their national team defeat the Germans in a mostly full Wembley stadium. Irish people must, thanks to this Government, endure the humiliation of being told that we must have fewer freedoms than the English, because of an out-of-control situation in England which the English themselves do not recognise. It is a case of gaslighting, to use the modern parlance, or the Emperor’s New Clothes, to put it in a more traditional context. In Ireland, alone amongst the nations of Europe, the Delta Variant is poised to strike at us, and kill our grandmothers. Everywhere else, it is under control.
None of this is a coincidence. Ireland has the misfortune to be lead at this time by an inordinately weak, spineless, and indecisive man. Mr. Martin’s Government – and they openly admit this, at least off the record – is terrified to defy NPHET because of the perception that they got it wrong on the last occasion that they did so. Politicians were rushing to brief journalists yesterday that they felt the decision was absurd, but that they could not risk being seen not to take “the advice”.
What are they in that job for, then? Such briefings are an open admission that those elected to lead are afraid to lead and are leaving the leading to those who relish it, the unelected advisors.
Yesterday was a black day for Ireland. It was a black day for many in the hospitality sector, who must see their businesses shuttered longer, and their futures imperilled. It was a black day for the young, who once again have their lives put on hold. It was a black day too, for those who advocated for mandatory hotel quarantine on the basis that it would help us open up sooner. How has that worked out, exactly?
Mainly though, it was a black day in our history as an independent, self-governing state. Because it was a day when our leaders took an unpopular, unjustified decision, and then admitted to all who would listen that they did it because they were afraid to do what they really wanted to do.
The country finds itself, yet again, in a historic, appalling, mess. We will not get our normal lives back without a concerted political effort to wrest the country back from the clutches of NPHET, and those who have so cowardedly handed it over to them.