Here’s a question for Dr. Tony, if any of you credentialled, press conference attending journalists happen to be reading: Why ninety per cent? Why not ninety five? Or eighty seven? Or one hundred per cent? What’s so scientifically significant about the number ninety? Let me venture an answer to that: Nothing. There’s nothing scientific about it:
🚨BREAKING: Nphet has told Government that 90pc of over 16s must be fully vaccinated before lifting remaining legal restrictions.
"Quite a high bar", says one source, and it could be into October before we're there.
Unclear what restrictions could be eased in meantime https://t.co/UbapcHghJw
— Hugh O'Connell (@oconnellhugh) August 26, 2021
Ninety is not a number of any significance in terms of achieving “herd immunity”, if that’s the answer that sprung to your mind. In fact, the science is widely agreed on this point: Herd immunity is probably impossible, even at 100% vaccinated:
“We’re moving away from the idea that we’ll hit the herd-immunity threshold and then the pandemic will go away for good,” says epidemiologist Lauren Ancel Meyers, executive director of the University of Texas at Austin COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. This shift reflects the complexities and challenges of the pandemic, and shouldn’t overshadow the fact that vaccination is helping. “The vaccine will mean that the virus will start to dissipate on its own,” Meyers says. But as new variants arise and immunity from infections potentially wanes, “we may find ourselves months or a year down the road still battling the threat, and having to deal with future surges”.
Always implicit in NPHET’s pronouncements is that if the public are just good and patient for a little while more, the rewards for good behaviour will be reaped. But of course, that has never been true. It remains untrue today. All of the science, globally, points to Covid 19 becoming a permanently present, endemic, virus. Indeed, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the vaccines which are presently available are very effective at reducing serious illnesses, deaths, and hospitalisations, but much less effective at eliminating transmissions. And, indeed, the evidence is also beginning to suggest that the immunity those vaccines provides wanes. That’s why “booster” is the hot new word in the global covid conversation.
It will, by the way, be the next word out of NPHET’s mouth. If you are stupid enough (sorry, there’s no other word for it, at this stage) to believe that this will be the last hoop that NPHET sets before lifting the restrictions, then you have not been paying attention. As far back as July, sports journalist Ewan McKenna laid out the likely course of the winter, minus the word “booster”, which hadn’t been invented then:
Coming months in headlines with zero scientific basis.
July – Younger adults the new vulnerable.
August – Children vulnerable ahead of school.
September – Cases increase as schools return.
October – Let's not make same mistake as last winter.
November-April – One last push.— Ewan MacKenna (@EwanMacKenna) July 16, 2021
Bear in mind that Denmark, a country with a similar sized population to Ireland – but with many fewer people vaccinated, compared to Ireland – is fully open and back to normal. No masks. No restrictions on crowd sizes. Nothing. The United Kingdom, our nearest neighbour, has fewer people vaccinated, and full houses at sports events, as well as fully open nightclubs.
Are all those countries mad? Are they all ignoring the science? Is Ireland, alone, the only country in western Europe that has gotten this right?
Of course not. We’re the only country in Europe governed by our “public health experts”, instead of our politicians.
It won’t end here, obviously. The next hoop through which we will be told to jump will involve booster shots for “the old and vulnerable”. When the average person can predict what NPHET will say with some confidence, then they are no longer practicing science.
It’s Ireland’s curse to have a Taoiseach who is, and always has been, incapable of thinking for himself. This is his doing. He’s handed the country over to Dr. Holohan, and it will be some time until he gets it back.