IOM Covid removing restrictions

[Banker]

https://www.three.fm/news/isle-of-man-news/22-in-hospital-with-coronavirus/
 

no daily reports of cases from tomorrow which may help to stop daily panic over cases, hopefully the hospital numbers will come down as high numbers are impacting on other medical services 

[Kipper99]

Isn’t it Laxey swimmer Wim Hoff Kirk’s trial today?

[WTF]

i wouldn't be too concerned about all the locals catching covid from the visitors, i'd be worried for all the visitors catching covid from the locals and then filling their own hospitals  once the symptoms start to show when they get back home to the UK and EU.   we will be red listed by the end of June.

[Gizo]

2 hours ago, John Wright said:

I think what you’re missing out of the equation on your analysis is the size of the locality, it’s population, the percentage of that population the incomers will mix with and then the size of the hospital. 

For a Grand Prix or Derby match it’s a fairly short term influx, not mixing much with the locals, and dispersing. Yes there is mixing between visitors, but they take it away with them.

Then there’s the size of the area, and it’s population, the GP or Derby match, is located.

Population of the Canaries 2.2 million. Population of IoM 85-90,000. Number of hospitals Canaries, 12 ( including 2 biggies ) IoM it’s 1 ( plus a small branch in Ramsey. )

Yawn

[Gizo]

32 minutes ago, Kipper99 said:

Isn’t it Laxey swimmer Wim Hoff Kirk’s trial today?

Free man I believe.  More taxpayers cash wasted on a non event. But remember the Bastard Squad love putting people in prison.

[Passing Time]

2 hours ago, Gizo said:

Free man I believe.  More taxpayers cash wasted on a non event. But remember the Bastard Squad love putting people in prison.

Unless there's a bit of work to be done in which case - under the carpet it goes

[Mr Helmut Fromage]

2 hours ago, Gizo said:

Free man I believe.  More taxpayers cash wasted on a non event. But remember the Bastard Squad love putting people in prison.

Genuine question would Officer Schuey be electrocuted himself if he tasered a man covered in water ???

[snowman]

3 hours ago, Kipper99 said:

Isn’t it Laxey swimmer Wim Hoff Kirk’s trial today?

Was it deemed "Not in the public interest" ?

[WTF]

12 minutes ago, Mr Helmut Fromage said:

Genuine question would Officer Schuey be electrocuted himself if he tasered a man covered in water ???

not unless schuey was in the water too would be my guess,  lets ask him to try and see what happens.

[NoTailT]

Happy Freedom Day!

[NoTailT]

11 minutes ago, offshoremanxman said:

It’s only “most” restrictions removed according to the islands premier scaremongers IOM Newspapers 

https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/most-covid-related-restrictions-end-543102

It's everything apart from visiting at bloody Nobles from what I can gather!

[NoTailT]

2 minutes ago, offshoremanxman said:

I think the editor tries to keep his dad happy when reporting anything positive regarding Covid. 

Needs to pull his head out of his butt.

It's like McDonalds mandating customers wear masks and claiming 'not all restrictions are gone'.

Edited April 1, 2022 by NoTailT

[Filippo]

1 hour ago, NoTailT said:

Happy Freedom Day!

 

1 hour ago, offshoremanxman said:

It’s only “most” restrictions removed according to the islands premier scaremongers IOM Newspapers 

https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/most-covid-related-restrictions-end-543102

 

17 hours ago, John Wright said:

It’s not just the number of beds, it’s the number of locals coming into contact with incomers.

As you say neither the visitors, nor locals, will be in 1886 every night. But they’ll tour pubs, 1886, bushy’s in the VM, Sulby Glen, etc. 

Im not saying you’re correct, or Rachel is correct. I think you both miss some of the risks/ameliorating factors from your opposite ends of the spectrum.

From what we’ve seen, since most restrictions were removed, it seems to come in waves. We just need a high local wave, added to by imported transmission to end up with a tsunami. Planning for that isn’t scaremongering, it’s prudence.

 

16 hours ago, Banker said:

https://www.three.fm/news/isle-of-man-news/22-in-hospital-with-coronavirus/
no daily reports of cases from tomorrow which may help to stop daily panic over cases, hopefully the hospital numbers will come down as high numbers are impacting on other medical services 

 

15 hours ago, WTF said:

i wouldn't be too concerned about all the locals catching covid from the visitors, i'd be worried for all the visitors catching covid from the locals and then filling their own hospitals  once the symptoms start to show when they get back home to the UK and EU.   we will be red listed by the end of June.

 

21 hours ago, wrighty said:

That's not it at all.  It's simply trying to display a grown-up attitude to a disease as it transits from new/pandemic to endemic.  It's called trusting people to do the right thing, which most of them will.

 

20 hours ago, Nom de plume said:

On the LGW flight this morning. 133 souls.

Not a mask wearer in sight. T’was a beautiful thing.

 

On 3/31/2022 at 9:03 AM, Gladys said:

What is MDC?

The point is that most of the hospital cases are being picked up on admission testing according to Theresa Cope.  The high figure is because it is at high levels in the community.  It is not because people are falling seriously ill with it, but of course the hospital do not want it circulating there.

So it will cause stresses on the hospital but it is not a reason not to continue with relaxation elsewhere.

Of course,  those who are scared for their lives think it is a very worrying sign and still want the daily stats to manage their risk, ie maintain their level of fear.  That is something that govt. need to help by reassurance. 

 

23 hours ago, Manx17 said:

I’m not sure it is that people are Scared, maybe a small majority. But I think it’s more that the hospital wasn’t the best in the first place, but now running on empty. 20 people with covid in hospital is a very small number and it  shouldn’t really make any difference to day to day running of things. It’s probably that in itself making people worry that if they get seriously Sick will they be able to get treatment. I definitely wouldn’t like to be a doctor or nurse now they must be run of their feet and it only takes one small mistake to make a devastating one. It makes me wonder if MHKs are qualified enough for the roles they take on, as it’s peoples lives at stake. Not necessarily people that have covid but more with people needing treatment for other things that itself won’t help them if they were then to get covid. The problem is the ones that made bad decisions in the past will have their nice pensions and know if they need treatment can afford to go private else where. Let’s hope this time with this government they make a difference. But up to now I’m not seeing it. It’s still let’s waste money, activity teams and street parties. Sweeping things under the carpet needs to stop. 

 

17 hours ago, Happier diner said:

Do we have a similar proportion of hospital beds/head of pop to the Canary Islands. The number of hospitals is not really relevant, its the number of beds.

I see you point re the grand Prix and a football match. Yes its not the locals that are being infected in those cases to a great extent

Maybe I am being thick, but, unless I am missing some relevant point, I can't see the difference to any other tourist destination. What about the world cup in Qatar for example.  Athletics world championships coming up. If the Canarians were worried they wouldn't allow tourists as there population swells for months on end not just for a week (not counting practice).

I am not denying it is a risk. I understand your points. I just don't think it is a significant risk, the infection rate on the IOM is alarmingly high at the moment. Every other bugger I know seems to have it. I can't see how it can be made worse by people coming from other locations that have similar or lower rates.

Not all IOM residents are in 1886 every night during TT

 

17 hours ago, TheTeapot said:

Are we playing the prediction game? I'm in.

TT won't make a blind bit of difference, the rates will have dropped loads by then and will stay low till after the summer. Prepare for another wave after the schools go back September would be my shout.

 

On 3/31/2022 at 7:58 AM, 2112 said:

It’s going to be fun TT fortnight with the daily/twice/thrice or more meetings to guess/check capacity before practice or race. Also the potential for biker or visitors to fall ill with COVID coupled with locals who may fall ill etc. Blind Panic. 

 

On 3/30/2022 at 6:43 PM, Youaintseenme said:

Absolute rubbish.

Hardly anyone I am aware of who has had it this year would have needed more than a day or two off work.  Most could have worked right through.

Most people knew the hospital number was meaningless and today Manx Care have finally admitted it.  Why this data hasn’t been available throughout I don’t know.  The constant obsession by some because two more people went into nobles for something and were routinely swabbed and found positive has caused huge distress to peoples mental health.

Forget the numbers and live your life to its fullest.  Summer is around the corner, we can travel relatively freely again and the best TT for years with loads of events is on its way.

Get out and smile.

 

On 3/30/2022 at 6:31 PM, thommo2010 said:

No it is over.

 

Freedom at last. This is the day in which one cannot anymore be made prisoner of one’s home or have to answer questions about one’s previous whereabouts when entering the island; the whole rigmarole of travelling forms, tests, isolation... gone! The whole Covid repression… gone! It could be a fragile freedom, only lasting until the next “variant of concern” or another function-enhancing experiment goes wrong in a poorly supervised Chinese virology lab. We will resume the fight against the control freaks of the world when needed. I wish all the lefties dead in the meantime.

I returned to the island on the 15th of March, travelling from the other side of Europe. I never had a Covid vaccine of any description; thus, on arrival I had to book a PCR test and attend an early morning exam at the TT Grandstand. The result of that PCR test was POSITIVE to Covid. I had had Covid in late February and early March, manifesting itself as a pretty intense cold that took longer than normal to resolve (two weeks of that “cold” to be honest). But not a sole symptom different from those of a normal cold; it had caused me no concern and no alteration to my normal schedule and activities. I only tested it and found out it had been Covid when I was back to the island, because I had to do the test (I did not see the payoff of lying on the IOM landing form).

My worst fears did not come to pass. The island appears to have accepted that living with the virus means living with the un-vaccinated too. Any policy of “health passes” (to use the common euphemism for Covid passporting) on this island would have been enormously more oppressive than almost anywhere else in Europe. I spent nearly three months in European countries that appear to require such health pass for most things, and I was able to do all what I wanted to do; occasionally using a fake pass; most of the time unchecked and undisturbed. Especially in Eastern European countries, but frankly also in Switzerland for what I have seen, when the authorities pretended to implement the damn policy, did not really expect the entire population to go along with it, nor their enforcing arm, the police, moved a finger to enforce it. Perhaps France and Italy have been the only European countries that took Covid passports seriously.

The retrograde attitudes of some old gigs posting to this site, fortunately not representative of the whole island, but still perhaps its more vocal constituency, tell me that any such policy, in this island, would have had the most demented religious implementation. This kind of health pass, if it were to be properly enforced, has the purpose to exclude from society those who retain independent judgement, at first; then to beat them into submission and to dissolve them into the common mediocrity of the populace. It is a credit to the local politicians that it did not happen on these shores; they understood the issues, even if they talk like all the other politicians. The reason why I stopped mocking Quayle and Ashford one year ago, it is because I understood they did not deserve it. They also changed their tune, one year ago.

My fake health pass is actually fully registered within the EU authentication system; its QR code can be easily authenticated through web page “www.getcovidpass.eu” for instance. Only, I found it in Telegram and it does not sport my name. Thus, I had to procure an ID to back it. I went to the dark web through the Tor browser and with a bit of bitcoin bought the PSD template to produce fake Italian IDs. Edited the PSD template with the name and birth date of the health pass, printed it with a good colour printer, glued ID’s front and back sides on carton paper from an old notebook; and that’s it, I was vaccinated. It is not the kind of certification that can be used to cross international borders; it never failed in all the other places (despite the age difference: I am an older man).

I had left the island on the 29th of December with a flight to Manchester, intending to continue with a flight from Manchester to Vienna. The latter flight being cancelled, I took a train to London intending to continue with a train to Paris. Unfortunately, at St Pancras the French border police did not like my “self-administered” antigen test; it had to be a nurse-administered nasal swab. A big argument ensued where perhaps I made the mistake of raising my voice a bit too much; the French guards got the British ones involved and I was kicked out of the check-in area with a firm warning not to return on that day. Okay, when I self administered the antigen test, I put the buffer solution directly into the well of the test kit without mixing it up with anything from nose or arse… but they did not know that!

Unsure what to do; one month earlier I had bought a flight from London to Milan for the 31st of December that could be used as a plan B route to escape this Brexit (sorry, Covid-variant) country. Instead, I just edited my self-administered antigen removing the self-administered bit and took a bus to Paris at Victoria Coach Station. The whole bus had two passengers; one sitting on the front and me sitting on the back. At Dover, I was asked about the purpose of my trip. Only essential travel allowed: was I an EU national intending to return to my country of birth? Thus, I pulled that plan B ticket from my bag and held it under the nose of the border guard hiding the place of departure with the thumb of my left hand and pointing the place of arrival with the index of the right hand: “yes you see I am going to take a flight to Milan tomorrow” – hurdle of first border pass cleared. Sometimes I surprise myself with how brazen I can be.

Once on the ferry from Dover to Calais a bit of extra money got me to the upper floor, the so called Calais Club Lounge. It was even less busy that the bus: me, only me, on the whole first-class floor of the ferry with its all-inclusive food and beverage offer. Obviously there was no chance of a shortage of food or drink; what a great lunch I had. You can see by yourself in the pics below; this UK-France travel ban was no bad travel experience at all.

Arrived at Quai de Bercy in the evening, I knew there is no overnight train from Paris to Frankfurt, and my Covid pass would have been checked by the driver of any bus to Germany: the rule was that a traveller from the UK needs a PCR rather than an Antigen. Thus, I edited my fake Antigen Test and turned into a fake PCR Test: in box “Test Type” change “Covid-19 (SARS CoV-2) Antigen (Lateral Flow)” to “Covid-19 (SARS CoV-2) RT-PCR Test”; rename box “Test Kit ID” to “Test Code”; and delete both box “Sensitivity/Specificity” and box “Manufacturer” (always leave box “Result” as “NEGATIVE” of course)... The driver could not scan the “QR Code” in the certificate. I heard myself telling him with a stern voice: “you cannot scan it because it is from England, which is not integrated within the EU system; the law says that it must be a negative PCR test not older than 48 hours; it does not prescribe the source or that the QR code must be scannable”. With my cool mind I was through the second stupid border.

Got to Frankfurt at about 8 am feeling perfectly rested (have no problem sleeping on trains or coaches; and in the upper floor of that coach there was no mask encumbrance among my fellow travellers; most of them of student age). I could have jumped straight away on a train to Vienna; but I waited until the ICE 27 leaves shortly past midday because, for being the busiest train of the day, it would have exposed me to the least risk of being picked up by border control. Through another border without much hassle. In Vienna, I saw kids with big petards and the police chasing them rather than checking Covid passes (that was the evening of the 31st of December).

One week later I headed to Zermatt from Prague through the line Praha, Dresden, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Zurich. The advantage of that line is that there are trains throughout the night: if the police had kicked me out of a train, I could have just waited a bit for the next one. Coming from Vienna, there is only one overnight train to Switzerland, which could have stranded me on the platform until the morning. In the segment Praha-Dresden, a university lecturer aged about thirty sitting immediately across the aisle spent one and half hour sipping her coffee and another one and half hour talking on the phone, as an excuse to keep her mask below the chin (mine was in the pocked of my shirt – masken! the thousands of times that cry was shout at me).

About two thirds of the journey to Dresden, the German police started going through the aisles raising my level of alert.
“What are they doing?” I asked her with a hint of concern.
“Are you... hiding something... running away from something?” she asked in a low voice and smirking face.
“No, I am just worried my covid papers may not be up to scratch,” I explained.
“Mine are as good as toilet paper!” she retorted with a hint of proudness, while holding her mask in front of her face like one of those Venetian carnival masks held in front of the face on a stick (that is the mental image that came to my mind; a theatre of the absurd). She was moving across borders frequently, either for work or for social purposes, and she had stopped worrying about Covid paperwork long time ago. The German police was checking Covid papers to some young men it did not like while leaving in peace the women and older men like me.

Hours later (at about 6 am) I was about to cross into Switzerland in a nearly empty train and the Swiss police was on the prowl among the aisles; three border guards, a woman and two men. I was pretending to be dozing, ensconced on the seat; it did not work. The police woman gently patted me on my shoulder and asked for identification and where I was going in three different languages to find out which one I was more comfortable with (try imagining British border guards being so polite). At first I gave them my true Italian ID (Switzerland had stricter requirements for the British in regard to Covid and right to abode) but they couldn’t scan it; thus I gave them my British passport. Asked about my destination, I told them I was heading to Lyon, producing a fake train ticket from Zurich to Lyon to support my claim (having edited the PDF of a two-year-old ticket). As traveller only transiting through Switzerland, I would not have needed a locator form and to arrange pre-departure and post-arrival Covid tests.

The fake ticket was convincing; my luggage was the seed of doubt: I had lined up one enormous backpack and one mega gear bag in the top shelf above my head, while tucking the skis behind those two on the same shelf in a concealing ruse; the skis wrapped into a black ski bag to be less visible, but sticking out at one end; and there were also three smaller bags scattered in the seats around me: I was occupying the whole end of a deserted night wagon with all that equipment for the mountain excursions of the following four weeks while dozing pretending going to Lyon…

After I told them about Lyon, they looked at each other and the police woman asked, less politely this time, whether all that luggage was mine. I knew that I would have survived no more than two minutes of questioning from experienced border guards; it would have been better to admit the truth straight away rather than upsetting them and risk an arrest (Switzerland only has a small fine as penalty for failing to fill up a locator form). “Yes, all this luggage belongs to me.” But rather than asking more questions, they went back scanning all my ID documents and waited for information to come back; waited for a while in silence while I remained completely still and silent of course. After they got the right info, they handed back my documents and left without saying a word. It was a case of don’t ask don’t tell. If the Swiss legislator really wanted those like me not to come, it would have passed the kind of draconian Covid laws that Austria, France and Italy all have. I was welcome spending money into Switzerland with Covid warts and all.

Four weeks later, on my journey back, I took a gamble with the overnight train from Zurich to Vienna that leaves Zurich at 21:40 pm and got lucky that there was no police check; one year ago, when the rules were less stringent, on the same train journey I was subject to Austrian border controls. This year the newly installed Austrian left-wing government is having mandatory Covid vaccination of all adult population and government officials are knocking door-to-door to enforce the policy; Austrian Covid policies have become the most draconian in Europe, at the least on paper.

For three weeks the ski resort was devoid of British skiers. Towards the end of the month, France reopened its borders to “vaccinated travellers” and the British started crowding out the place again. Missing the empty gondolas and the deserted slopes, on the fourth week I switched to climbing.

Look, below are my ski passes. I wish to dedicate this posting to the 100-plus British skiers denied entry at Innsbruck airport for failing to meet Austrian strict covid-testing requirements; caught out by a rule introduced suddenly on Christmas Day requiring all travellers to Austria to have a PCR taken within 48 hours rather than 72 hours. As well as having had a full course of three Covid-shots, of course; vaccine is an absolute must for travelling to Austria from a degenerate Brexit country. Most of these skiers were flown back to the UK immediately; some were sent to quarantine centres. This article on the Telegraph reported the accident:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/12/28/100-british-travellers-denied-entry-austria-airport-new-covid/

With fake PCR tests, fake onward tickets, and no Covid vaccination of any description, I went through Austria and all of its bordering countries except Italy. And you might ask why I decided to make this kind of provocative posting now. It is a final fuck-you to the control freaks. The left has used the accident of Covid to take away our freedoms. It doesn’t care anything about our life expectancy or sanity; its ultimate aim, to the extent that its policies can be framed as a rational plan, is to replace the Western liberal order with a sick high-tech version of Bentham’s Panopticon. To do so, it has constructed an absurd narrative which it called “the science” but with no real foundation on scientific evidence or logic. A plan that hasn’t worked with me, for instance. As shown by Allegra Stratton’s video openly bragging about the lack of social distance at those seventeen Downing Street’s parties, and the 300-plus photos in the hands of Scotland Yard well documenting the same Downing Street’s parties, in this country, the whole pandemic construct was really meant by the powers that be as a device to control the plebs.

 

 

 

 

 

[WTF]

another plague rat  ........  thankyou Tolstoi

Edited April 1, 2022 by WTF

[Happier diner]

4 minutes ago, offshoremanxman said:

Never has so much bollocks been posted on this forum.

And there's some pretty steep competition.