




  • Moderators, Politics Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 10,560 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Quin_Dub

    I'd have no issue in principal with guidance to wear masks during the winter on Public transport , crowded places etc. I'd also be more than happy to see Shops/bars/cafés etc. leave the sanitizer out and so on.

    The positive impact that Masks and additional cleanliness has had on the typical infectious diseases is pretty clear.

    Lots of data out there showing clear reductions in "regular" respiratory infections as well as gastro infections and the like due to masking and people being more attentive to washing their hands etc.

  • Registered Users Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭ Gortanna

    Again that's not true. Many of the restrictions have been based on wildly inaccurate modelling (see the articles about the SAGE modelling). Not for valid and solid reasons.

    Do you even read posts you reply to? I said that in the eyes of many scientists and doctors mask-wearing and other measures will be valid measures forevermore (see the article about the US) when it comes to flu and other illnesses. Perfectly valid when viewed through the narrow lens of 'close to zero risk', but it would mean a restricted life going forward. Forever.

    At what point do you just move on? Never it seems, according to you. Forever reacting to variants that come along (and they'll come along forever because covid isn't going anywhere) and forever introducing restrictions. If the same approach had been taken to the Spanish Flu then there would have been restrictions the past 100 plus years because it didn't go away.

    And I'm waiting for you to justify the French politician's popping over to Ibiza because he was afraid of covid. Oh no, sorry, he was telling everyone else to be afraid of it while he went sunbathing and partying in Ibiza. You'll probably mention something about seatbelts.

  • Registered Users Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭ Gortanna

    Name another country in the world with zero opposition. I was going to say 'in the free world', but that wouldn't be correct, for obvious reasons.

  • Registered Users Posts: 23,312 ✭✭✭✭ King Mob

    Still not telling us what the real reason for masks is.

    It's been 350 pages.

    Why can't you answer that simple question?

    Why do you keep avoiding it?

  • Registered Users Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭ Gortanna

    No problem with guidance. It's the 'seasonal requirement' that'd be the issue.

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  • Registered Users Posts: 547 ✭✭✭ shillyshilly

  • Registered Users Posts: 13,156 ✭✭✭✭ charlie14

    If I was you I wouldn`t be highlighting modelling as a good example to validate my arguement. The modelling by those chasing or claiming they had achieved herd immunity wouldn`t make them top of the class material either.

    Is it also getting a bit childish pointing at individual political idiots as being some kind of validation for your views. Even if I have to admit after all your posts I`m still not clear on what your views actually are.

  • Registered Users Posts: 14,430 ✭✭✭✭ Dohnjoe

    Complete whataboutery.

    We have restrictions because of the pandemic. Likewise during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, there were measures and restrictions

    As that pandemic subsided, the measures did. Once this pandemic subsides, the same will happen. If it flares up again, or another pandemic comes along - there will be measures/restrictions again.

    You have an entrenched belief that "measures will be permanent" regardless of what's happening. It's an irrational belief you feel compelled to keep trying to satisfy, and since it's irrational, it's the root cause of all these convoluted reasons and whataboutery you keep providing.

  • Registered Users Posts: 23,312 ✭✭✭✭ King Mob

    What Gotanna and other theorists are trying to insinuate is that all the decisions made by governments don't make sense.

    The argument is that it's not possible governments are just making bad decisions or are acting stupidly. Therefore it must be a giant global conspiracy.


    And that's the crux of it.

    You say "No problem with guidance. It's the 'seasonal requirement' that'd be the issue."

    Which really means - You don't want to do it.

    Because if you were happy to do it , then it being mandatory or optional would be entirely irrelevant.

    If Mask wearing and the other enhanced sanitary activities can clearly be shown to have a positive impact on Public health (Which they absolutely do) , then what's the problem??

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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭ Gortanna

    Yes, I'd have a problem with being required by law to cover my face forever. Even if only for a few months of the year.

    Do you think flu should be treated the way covid is treated? That is with masks, social distancing, vaccine passports, children in masks all day in school, limits on numbers in restaurants etc?

  • Registered Users Posts: 14,430 ✭✭✭✭ Dohnjoe

    They are "smart" enough to know that answering that question undermines their entire position.

    We are dealing with a poster here who "sees" a majority of Irish people wearing masks on the street (because they are "popular")

  • Registered Users Posts: 23,312 ✭✭✭✭ King Mob

    Lol. He's trying to deflect again.

    He doesn't want to address the real reason behind masks because either he doesn't know or because his answer is silly.

  • Registered Users Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭ Gortanna

    Not accurate. Far from being happy to let the measures subside, there are scientists in the US who want the measures used for covid to be used for the flu and every winter, forever: With Covid, we’ll never have a normal flu season again - Vox

    "...the imperative to “flatten the curve,” to limit the spread of these viruses to stop hospitals from being overwhelmed, will be with us for a long time. But the makeup of the curve will change, measuring multiple diseases instead of one."

    "Public health experts believe now and going forward the US needs a new public health strategy that treats Covid-19 and influenza as one unified threat. We can’t think that we will endure the omicron wave and then all of these problems will be behind us. This is the new reality. Responding to it adequately, along the lines some experts are calling for, would require a massive effort — nothing less than a complete rethinking of how we respond to the annual winter surge in respiratory illness."

    "Anand Parekh, chief medical adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said any strategy for navigating the Covid-and-flu seasons to come should have at least four components: vaccination, testing, treatment, and masking."

    And I'm guessing you'd support that.

    Just like other posters are arguing that a 'seasonal requirement' to wear masks 'is no big deal' and saying 'what's wrong what?'. The 'it's no big deal' means permanent restrictions can never actually be permanent. They'd just restrictions that are 'no big deal'. So if brianhere is right and we end up with masks everywhere forever (even if seasonally because don't forget that Varadkar said 'permanent rule' or a 'seasonal requirement', he didn't say 'or they'll be voluntary') and having passes and socially distancing every winter, then it will be dismissed here as 'no big deal'.

  • Registered Users Posts: 23,312 ✭✭✭✭ King Mob

    Ok. Why is it a big deal?

    Why are they really trying to push it?

  • Registered Users Posts: 4,291 ✭✭✭ woody22

    Has anyone in the 'covid restrictions are permanent' crowd responded to the imminent removal of all restrictions, including masks, in the UK?

  • Registered Users Posts: 23,312 ✭✭✭✭ King Mob

    Usually it's been along the lines of "I'm not talking about other countries, I'm only saying that the measures will be permanent in Ireland".

    Unless it's convenient for their conspiracy theory, then other countries count again.

  • Subscribers Posts: 36,005 ✭✭✭✭ sydthebeat

  • Registered Users Posts: 14,430 ✭✭✭✭ Dohnjoe

    Why are countries dropping mask mandates?

    No deflections, just answer.

    Brianhere is not right, again, you keep clinging desperately to completely bonkers post by an internet poster who thought all measures would be permanent (false) because of a giant Communist conspiracy (false) because all emergencies measures in history have been made permanent (false), because Covid was just a ruse for something nefarious (false)

    You keep changing and morphing every argument you make because you keep trying to fit the original premise (measures will be permanent) like a religious mantra. Zero logic/reason. As mentioned, if all measures are gone, you will either disappear from this thread or you will still be in here claiming they are all "about" to come back. This forum is full of people with cemented irrational beliefs like you, which is why you agree with them and never challenge any of those beliefs here, no matter how zany.

  • Registered Users Posts: 14,430 ✭✭✭✭ Dohnjoe

    Yup, the few that remain have been endlessly changing the goalposts. It will eventually boil down to them seeing an old person wearing a mask in a supermarket and proclaiming we are still under the jackbooted oppression of tyrannical measures designed to control us.

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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,156 ✭✭✭✭ charlie14

    Bit of a step down from all restrictions being part of some secret worldwide plan of authoritarianism to medics being in favour of mask wearing for beneficial health reasons. Or have medic now taken over the role of attempting to achieve it as politicians have obviously failed to deliver ?

    You do realise don`t you that for large areas of Asia people have been wearing face masks for years for the reasons given by those medics as well as for showing good manners towards their fellow citizens.

  • Registered Users Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭ Gortanna

    Yeah, 'cause that's all a permanent seasonal requirement to wear masks would be. Just the odd old person wearing one in a supermarket.

  • Registered Users Posts: 14,430 ✭✭✭✭ Dohnjoe

  • Registered Users Posts: 23,312 ✭✭✭✭ King Mob

    But why would anyone be concerned about this?

    What's the real reason behind them pushing masks and why are you so terrified of them?

    Why are you so terrified of this question?

  • Registered Users Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭ Gortanna

    What countries apart from England?

    Well, we don't know what the Great Reset is yet, so we should wait to see about the nefarious thing. And a person can agree that measures will be permanent for other reasons you know. I have said that what I fear is the scientification of life/society. And predictably enough Varadkar floating a 'seasonal requirement' to wear them, or, and this is extraordinary, a permanent rule, was dismissed as no big deal. The two possibilities he presented were )a) a permanent rule or (b) a seasonal requirement. Nothing about them being voluntary.

    Just like the vaccine passport was dismissed as 'no big deal', after first being dismissed as a 'conspiracy theory'.

    I don't have to challenge other posters. None of my business what they believe.

  • Registered Users Posts: 23,312 ✭✭✭✭ King Mob

    I guess they're not part of the conspiracy anymore?

    Probably for the best given that they couldn't keep a few parties quiet. They might have blown the whole plan by accident.

  • Registered Users Posts: 14,430 ✭✭✭✭ Dohnjoe

  • Registered Users Posts: 14,430 ✭✭✭✭ Dohnjoe

    The question and straightforward answer to it exposes the belief as irrational, so the poster with the irrational belief will endlessly deflect or come up with some gobbledygook answer :)

  • Registered Users Posts: 14,430 ✭✭✭✭ Dohnjoe

    Worse than that, there's not even a conspiracy anymore, was too much effort to invent one, it's devolved into four word mantra "measures will be permanent", that's it.

    The statement must be obeyed, all efforts, no matter how nonsensical, must satisfy the statement, that's the level we've reached here. If I ever start a cult, a conspiracy forum will be the first place I go looking for members.

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  • Registered Users Posts: 23,312 ✭✭✭✭ King Mob

    He can't answer it because his grifters haven't come up with a rationalisation for it.

    And he certianly can't come up with an original idea by himself.

    Hence all the stalling.

    I guess the conspiracy theory has now been reduced to "masks will be used for 3 months of the year".

    Big step down from "All" and "permanent."

    Though I imagine Gortanna's about to tell us how that's 99% of the restrictions now.