Probably the most ignorant thing written on twitter this decade.

I noticed you conveniently omitted Sweden from that list, given their 1,765 dead and 11.52% didn't suit your narrative.

Rebuttal: https://twitter.com/olivercallan/status/1252659651621109761

April 19th, Finland reported 4 dead.
April 20th, Finland reported 47 deaths.

Jumped from 4 to 47.

Reason?

STARTED counting nursing home deaths in the Helsinki Metropolitan area. And that Helsinki-Uusimaa hospital district is the FIRST to report of TWENTY hospital districts.

Finland chose to *only report hospital deaths*.

Public pressure played a role and they have changed course to report nursing home deaths. Some Finish experts believe it'll more than double deaths by the time all districts have reported their numbers. https://www.foreigner.fi/articulo/coronavirus/hus-accuses-health-agency-of-failing-to-report-dozens-of-coronavirus-deaths/20200418103232005364.html

Norway, on the other hand, have been counting nursing home deaths, just like Ireland have.

Norway, April 20th:

163 total dead:

Hospital - 58
Nursing Homes - 100
Home - 5

That's 61.3% nursing home deaths, compared to Ireland's 54%.

https://www.fhi.no/contentassets/ca5914bd0aa14e15a17f8a7d48fa306a/2020.04.21-dagsrapport-norge-covid-19.pdf

Danish Serum Institute (Center for Disease Control) have admitted (April 17th) they have no idea how many are infected or died in nursing homes as they don't yet have in place the surveillance, but they're "working on a review" that'll take 2-3 weeks. https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/12-beboere-paa-plejehjem-i-koebenhavn-doede-med-coronavirus

So lets recap here:

-Finland were not counting nursing home deaths.
-Norway were counting nursing home deaths and they were sky high.
-Denmark is working on a review to retroactively count them.
-Sweden, who you conveniently omitted, are having their nursing homes decimated.

The early studies into nursing home deaths are suggesting the average will be north of 50% (which is where Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Belgium, Canada all are).

Nursing homes are incredibly difficult to defend against highly transmissibile respiratory diseases.

It's not as simple as "wear PPE and ban visitors".
It's not as simple as "test everybody and isolate".

If it was, you'd have no coronavirus cases in well-run facilities but the reality we see the world over is coronavirus in the best-run facilities who took every precaution.

Your next talking point was Ireland are "26th for population but 11th for virus deaths".

Ireland's death toll is 730.

If we counted our deaths precisely the way Finland counted them initially, our death toll would be *290* - by removing nursing home deaths and at home deaths.

If we then counted them as other countries are doing - omitting BOTH nursing homes and comorbidities (i.e. terminal cancer, congestive heart failure) - our death toll would go from 290 all the way down to *129*

We'd have a nice shiny low number, look how great we're doing.

It's morally repugnant to omit nursing home deaths and comorbidities. That's my opinion.

Everyone dying covid19 positive is dying alone or beside someone wearing masks and gloves. Their funerals are being live streamed because people aren't allowed go pay their respects.

To leave them off the total would be immoral. We need to preserve the record how many of our fine Irish people died. We need to know how many Irish families are suffering in isolation.

Our method might lead to people like you exploiting the number but they're morally correct.

I'm positive Ireland, Canada, Germany, Belgium and everywhere else will do far better at protecting nursing homes in future - because we now know more about the pathology of the virus.

But to suggest a common worldwide outcome is an "Irish scandal" highlights your ignorance.

It's a disgrace people seeking to portray the nursing home situation in Ireland as a distinctly Irish failing - it isn't.

By doing so we miss some wider, valid questions of how society undervalues the elderly.

The real scandal is we only started caring when a pandemic hit.