@Aaron O Brien: so open them for child minding rather than education?

@Steve: creche’s take 10 and 6 year olds… I better go tell the Missus quick.. thanks pal

@Steve: unless your crèche stays closed regardless of lists or recommendations which I can understand from their perspective regarding safety etc but hugely disruptive for parents on essential/ frontline lists.

@Jamie Bent: and you are Dr who?

@Jamie Bent: but Harvey Norman can….. I’m off to buy a new 4K telly so I can see every little detail of Tony’s face as he announces the daily figures

@Steve: no creches for 10 yearolds

@Aaron O Brien: I would. They can’t tell me that standing on a lawn with a club is dangerous but being in a room with 30 people isn’t.

@Aaron O Brien: ill do it.
Schools can’t open on Monday

@Colin: He’s probably not a doctor Colin, just someone with a bit of common sense!

@Liam Meade: yes it’s a tough situation for many. Maybe if the schools were to open up for the children of priority workers only, that would keep class numbers down which would keep the teachers safe. The rest of the children can be home schooled. It’ll mean a bit more work for the teachers but surely it could work?

@Vanessa: ahhhh so you looking at it from the teachers side of things, not the fact that the kids are missing out on their education, social skills, friendships.

@Aaron O Brien: You’re being pathologically disagreeable. A temporary loss of education and friendship is can be returned to, a loss of life cannot be undone

@Aaron O Brien: what do you do with your 10 and 6 year old in summer? Creches around me take older kids, and ones that didn’t are now taking from essential workers families. Have you actually rang around and asked?

@Jamie Bent: the numbers have gone up despite the schools being closed for a couple of weeks…the schools never caused anything when they were open. Open up the schools and everyone please realise that it is safe to do so. The kids going to school does not cause any risk to themselves. Just don’t expose them to the old and vulnerable. Open the schools and stop this complete and utter tripe

@Steve: You can send 8 year olds to creches?

@Jamie Bent: they are not opening until end of the month

@Conor CoCo Moroney: it’s what’s his been doing for days

@Jamie Bent: yes they can. Stagger the classes, tell the teachers to adjust their work hours. Give the children 4 hours each for those who’s parents are front line workers. As for all those who’s parents are essential workers (not frontline) let them learn online with all the other teachers, and include them into their current classes online. Everyone needs to adjust a little bit.

@Conor CoCo Moroney: that’s true, tell me again the ratio of deaths compared to cases.6 dead today out of 6000.How many kids in that number zero.how many healthy people zero.. no disrespect to those who have died, but they underlying conditions and are over the age of 65 (I apologise if I’m wrong) I have buried my father and grandmother in the past 16 months , both cancer and I know that if they were alive they would be susceptible to this virus.they would need to be kept away from it.. that doesn’t mean that my kids, everyone’s kids, livelihoods, savings, earnings, basic human rights, jobs,economy would need to fall apart to keep them safe. It’s not just about kids in school anymore, this is everything+everyone.we are going down a path with no coming back from the disaster it is causing.

@Colin: And you are Colin Baker?

@Jamie Bent: But Norma Foley said there were a safe environment

@Steve: How does that work? Are you proposing teachers educate the children of priority workers during the school day and then spend their evenings liasing with those being ‘homeschooled’?

@Life in no motion: buy an 8k, don’t wimp out.

@Aaron O Brien:
Well said Aaron!
Good to know there are others out there with a bit of logic and common sense within them.
Was getting worried.

@Sorcha Ní Shúilleabháin: No, set the work online whilst you are in the classroom. It should not take much time to upload the weeks curriculum for the kids to work on at home. Be available for online questions whilst in the classroom. Adapt and overcome!!
As long as the teacher have a computer and internet access I can see no real reason as to why this could not work.

@Aaron O Brien: I’m looking it from a parent’s side of thing. If my son is in said class he may be fine but carry it home. That there’s always a crowd of people picking the children up doesn’t make it saver either.

@Jamie Bent: you’re not a teacher. You’re a student who just doesn’t want to go back after Christmas

@Aaron O Brien: Ok so now you’re showing your true colours. If you feel like that then you should be able to find a like minded child minder to look after your kids whilst you are at work.

You problem has been resolved, easy!

@Steve: thanks Steve I’ll cherish your advice.. legendary

@Aaron O Brien: Aaron, fair point in essence but you don’t mention the fact that is now occurring in the uk. With hospitalsat capacity and ambulances lining up outside the only ememgency response for non covid emergencies is to be guided in first response techniques by a phone operator which is far from ideal. While that phone operator is on the line for a lot longer than usual it means that 112/ 999 calls are not being answered. The most important difference between living and dying is speed of access to medical intervention. This is not about the numbers dying from covid directly but those indirectly due to lack of emergency intervention due to covid

@Aaron O Brien: My pleasure

@Jamie Bent: Schools in Dublin.

@Aaron O Brien: you are wrong

@Marlnor: wow thank you for that input… I better sit back down and rewrite and rethink everything.. Thank you for opening my eyes

@Pat Ryan: totally agree. Also those that have lost their lives in todays figures relate surely to the cases identified a couple of weeks/months back. Therefore there has got to be an increase of deaths potentially in the next couple of weeks due to the time lag of being diagnosed and unfortunately passing away from covid. It genuinely makes me so sad to see people trying to justify the deaths as being old or having qualifying conditions. I would not want anybody to get covid let alone die as a result.

@Steve: and what about the children who don’t have broadband access ir computers?

@Jamie Bent: retails should close

@Aaron O Brien: those 6 unfortunates today, RIP, were probably counted as cases when the new case count was probably in the low to mid hundreds at the start of december. Using today’s 6000+ new cases to compare those deaths to is wrong. What you should be asking is how many of those 6000reported on today will be still with us in a months time, or 2 months time.

@Steve: Im not putting my 5 year old in front of a laptop all day. He needs to be in school to learn to read and write with his school pals.

@Aaron O Brien: Sorry for your loss.Would you still think this way if they were both still alive living through this ? Its not as simple as keeping them away from it .Its about keeping you and your kids etc. away from them. People got carried away at christmas and were paying for it now. We knew this was coming for January.

@Joe_X: fair enough, don’t you think it’s the governments job, responsibility to make that information available for all of us?

@Colm Beck: get a grip. PANFOOKINDEMIC! FFS

@Life in no motion: click and collect only from those types of stores

@Steve: any teachers get badly ill so far? Asking for a friend his name is Gem.

@Aaron O Brien: the information is there. Go back to the start of December to se the daily case number. It was about the 300 mark if memory serves me right, now fast forward to today. We have 6 more dead. It was 7 yesterday. That is roughly 1 in 50. I don’t even want to think what that means for us in a months time. There will be a lot of grieving families if that trend holds. I hope it doesn’t, I really dont.

@EillieEs: Provisions will have to be made. There can’t be thousands of students without a computer and BB in this day and age so they can attend school with the children of front line workers. These obstacle’s can be overcome if there is a will.

@Colm Beck: You could take responsibility and teach your child yourself FFS!

@Jamie Bent: a backlog of reporting so now it’s the new real. Nuts

@Master P: the thing about Aaron is that he has said on another article his mother is in a vulnerable category. Yet he claims she doesn’t wear a mask and he swans in and out to her not wearing one himself. I think he’s just a troll or at the very least being very disingenuous with what he’s telling us. Thankfully he’s not in a position to be making policy or guiding public health responses to this. But, his guff is dangerous because there are plenty that latch on to what he’s saying and believing it.

@Jamie Bent: I read a tweet the other day quoting a woman in Australia who was born in Bosnia. She missed 4 years of schooling and spoke no English when she arrived in Australia as an 8 year old child. She now has a Masters. I really think schools are putting too much pressure on kids right now.

@Eugene Norman: government damned if they do and damned if they don’t. People calling for a lockdown and people calling for country to be opened up and get on with it.

@Eugene Norman: and if they hadn’t loosened up then the other half of the population would be crying about a Nanny State, removal of our civil liberties, Plandemic, its all a hoax to control us blah blah blah. There’s no way to win this one……

@Paul Rickie Joe T: let’s go back to start, the world was aware of this problem and it is moving from country to country, so who decided to keep the airports and ports open for passenger travel? The government is 100% responsible because they wouldn’t make the harsh decision of locking Ireland away from the rest of the world.

@Paul Rickie Joe T: I totally agree. If we don’t obey the rules then it is our fault. We need to take responsibility for our actions. Stay at home, stop the parties and house gatherings. When this is gone there will be plenty of time to meet and bring in New Years. It’s hard on those of us who obey the rules and stick to the guidelines and sacrifice all and for what?

@paulie G: that would not have been possible. You’re aware there is an open border with the UK right? Our government cannot lock Ireland away from the rest of the world… not while anyone can waltz in from NI

@John Staunton: we have our own army have we not that could have been deployed to do what they are there to do, protect the country.

@Paul Rickie Joe T: the minority are causing this for the majority. If everyone didn’t the right thing then there wouldn’t be literally thousands with the virus at the moment

@paulie G: you’re joking now right? You’re seriously suggesting that the way to respond to this would have been to deploy the army along the border? To totally disregard the Good Friday Agreement, cause an international incident, etc? That’s your solution?

@Paul Rickie Joe T: speak for yourself!

@John Staunton: wow you are right, this current situation is fair better in that context.

@John Staunton: they did it for foot and mouth disease in 2001 when the paramilitary situation was a LOT more delicate

@Paul Rickie Joe T: no its not our behaviour. The deaths are low and no higher than any other year. So whats the problem??

@paulie G: legally, we could not do that. The only way would have been to have held a referendum to change the role of the military. Otherwise, one single court challenge from any of the Gemmaroids and such use of the army would have had to have been ended. That would have been a colossal and reckless waste of resources. We managed to get cases pretty much to 0 by the end of the first lockdown without closing borders. Why is it we can’t go back to the restrictions of the first lockdown? Why is it you focus on the border when it has been shown time and again that it is not the primary cause? Go for the primary causes, and if necessary then go for the lower ones. You have it all backwards.

@paulie G: “locking Ireland from the rest of the world”….good one. If that was a case nearly a year down the road and we’d be still locked away, how you think that would pan out for us ??

@Eugene Norman: they may have relaxed the rules but nobody was forced to go out and socialise. But you’re right, clearly some people have no sense of responsibility? As soon as there’s a lockdown you have the usual suspects whinging about their rights being trampled on…

@Eugene Norman: ehhh no. No point blaming the government when grown adults cannot take responsibility for their actions and behaviours when there’s a worldwide pandemic going on. The government is not completely blameless but in all fairness how hard is it to distance yourself socially, wear a mask, wash your hands and don’t have parties. Large scale ignorance and petulance have a strong role in these numbers.

@Eugene Norman: I agree with Paul. If the government led you to a cliff, would you jump? They loosened the restrictions to ease the stress and people made their own decisions to act wrecklessly

@Daniel Dunne: they actually didn’t. They had checks on some crossings to disinfect vehicles and prevent livestock from crossing, but they were unable to stop cross-border human movements as humans are – believe it or not – not legally classified as livestock. I remember this clearly as I worked in agriculture at the time.

@John Staunton: Don’t agree with Paulie’s suggestion of the northern border army patrol…, but do agree we needed an all-Ireland approach on airports and seaports closing on passenger travel to non-island of Ireland destinations. If not then we needed sophisticated testing facilities at the airports and seaports and quarantining hubs.
Not pointing the finger only at the government however, I think is both the government and its people at fault.

@Jason Ebbs: look at the UAE And come back to me. They closed all passenger travel into their country, they are doing a lot better than us. Also, a year on where are we? Oh look back into another lockdown.

@paulie G: are you are comparing the UAE with Ireland ??!

@Eugene Norman: Govt to blame. We should take no responsibility ourselves. What are you? 5? Let’s grow up and be responsible until this vaccine is mass rolled out.

@Eugene Norman: nonsense

@John Staunton: John you can’t win with some people, I feel like Grimsey in that episode of the simpsons when I see some of the comments from all the Homer Simpson experts out there, There should be an exam before you are allowed on the internet. That way moronns don’t have a world reaching voice.

@Eugene Norman: there has to be personal responsibility, at this stage we don’t need the government to tells us to limit or contacts if we don’t want to get it. Do you what some to take you by the hand and tell you what you already know.

@Kiern Mcx: do you honestly think Arlene was ever going to agree to that???? Imagine if an all Ireland approach had succeeded in suppressing the spread? She’d rather see people die from Covid…….

@Eugene Norman: well, they didn’t make it illegal to stay at home. Try some personal responsibility.

@Paul Rickie Joe T: hope the parents who paid above the fare to get their adult children home for Xmas Dinner through Belfast,even though it UK flights to Republic and most of Europe were banned, to make matters worse they then bought them out to visit grandparents friends etc nó isolation nothing, know of one flight on the Tues after announcement most of full flight was people from Republic, while they aren’t completely to blame they still are a big part of problem we have now.. So hope you enjoyed your dinner and granny gets to live for next year

@Looney Tunes: take a photo

@Pearse Fitzgerald: hang on I’ll go up to each individual & take a picture,cmon, 1655 ex maynnoth train

@Looney Tunes: Report it to Irish Rail

@Aaron O Brien: if they have exemptions, why did they were a mask onto the train & as soon as they sit down, the mask goes under the neck,

@Gary Kearney: I have, happy?

@Looney Tunes: No face coverings? Well wear a face shield, still can’t do either? Especially now in this of all weeks eith cases through the roof, Walk, Jog, Run, Cycle, Get A Lift home, whatever, I don’t care. It’s up to transport operators and stores to fully 100% enforce this, as well as the public, no excuses. No shields/coverings = no public transport/shop entry etc. Selfishness & pure Laziness, that’s all it is.

@Looney Tunes: so you lied, they were wearing a mask.. tut tut

@Pearse Fitzgerald: you would have done well in East berlin or Maoist China.
Is it not painfully bloody obvious at this stage that masks do not do a thing? Unless you think that this wave is down to the very small percentage of people who don’t/can’t wear masks?

@Aaron O Brien:shows your intelligence, masks are mandatory on trains at all times, not to be taken off when seated

@Looney Tunes: just wondering are the guards exempt from wearing masks when 2 of them travelling in a squad car. I’ve observed that there is no mask wearing in the car. Likewise tradesmen travelling together in vans.

@Aaron O Brien: Ah ya see here’s the issue Mr Looney, approp name. People still making excuses for this type of behaviour. Can’t do a facecovering? Do a Visor Shield! Can’t do that either? Respect other compliant people on board and walk, jog or run home. I don’t care at this point, things are way too serious now. Guaranteed they’d no exemption and are very likely “The GPO Patriots” type who are looking for aggro from people to call them out.

@SHA: I’m only commenting on what I saw, I can’t comment on the topics that you witnessed

@SHA: you’ve

@Looney Tunes: They realise masks are useless, as we were told by the experts as late as June.

@Looney Tunes: I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve seen not wearing a mask at all in shops (slightly higher amount not wearing over their nose, admittedly). I refuse to believe the current case numbers we’re seeing now is down to people not wearing masks, unless the situation in the rest of the country is absolutely atrocious. I’m starting to believe those epidemiologists who believe that masks in a community situations show no significant evidence in reduction of numbers. (Masks are typically worn in medical situations to prevent bacterial spread, not viral spread.) All this said, I’ll continue to wear my mask when in shops/public transport, but as always, I’ll put more faith in social distancing and personal hygiene.

@Noel Kelly: this absolute obsession by Irish people with masks is rediculous, clearly they’re not as effective as people think.

@Gavin Mckenna: Visor shield does fkk all. Might as well just wear sunglasses. I’ll give you credit for finally being able to make a comment without mentioning “Gem Gem” though. Well done!

@Looney Tunes: unless you’re exempt

@Winston Smith: here here!!

You would think by now some would’ve noticed their lack of effectiveness!

@Aaron O Brien: plenty out there using that as an excuse and nothing wrong with them. It was put in place for genuine cases with genuine reasons.

@Remy Martin: very intelligent comment again from you. Enough scientific studies providing enough evidence re masks. Problem is, people don’t only meet in public, but also at home – for example – yes, you guessed it – over the Christmas period.. And in this situation, they neither social distance nor do they wear masks. There you go, that’s the issue, not that masks “don’t work”.

@Lotta Rossler: There are plenty of studies, mostly observational ones. Not the strongest of evidence. Before 2020 there was shockingly little evidence that they did anything, and given the numbers we’re seeing now, they don’t seem to have had much impact on them. Could be because most people aren’t wearing them, but that’s not what I’ve been seeing anyway. In my area there’s almost nobody in a shop without a mask, and a very small amount of people not wearing them over their nose.

@Aaron O Brien: no, he didn’t. They weren’t wearing them when he spotted them. Under the chin doesn’t count as wearing a mask. You think you’ve got an answer/retort for everything, well there’s plenty of us here well able to put you and your ilk back in your boxes.

@Dan the man: 100% if somebody needs these services they can easily find them. Bored of this daily post at this stage zzzzzzz

@Vanessa: * Too

@Dan the man: the chap is consistent with his post, why knock him down? Its good to highlight that help is out there

@Dan the man: maybe he’s trying to offer support you spoon!!!!

@Matthew McMahon: thank you xxx

@Matthew McMahon: Fair play xxx

@Matthew McMahon: are you the new Anna Anna?

@Al O’Dowd: He’s simply offering mental health phone numbers. He’s not commenting on coronavirus cases or trying to interpret stats towards one bias or other. He also seems to be the only one of all the commenters here actually doing anything proactive and helpful.

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Absolutely, couldn’t agree more! Good to raise awareness!