Paul Durcan’s 1978 poem about Éamon de Valera confronting youngsters making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin came to mind this week, but with State chief medical officer Tony Holohan now occupying the role of Dev: “I see him now in the heat haze of the day/ Blindly stalking us down/ And, levelling an ancient rifle, he says ‘Stop Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin’. ”
Replace that last line with “Stop your march towards indoor hospitality” and there you have Tony, levelling a rifle of terrifying projections at the Government and publicans. In keeping with such dramatic imagery, some of the responses from politicians this week smacked of recreational and theatrical outrage; do they really believe there is some path to “fairness” for all amid this pandemic?
The aggrieved response from those whose businesses have been hammered is completely understandable and generous support for them is imperative, but there is not going to be consensus on what constitutes an acceptable level of risk. The centralisation of power in, and deference to, the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has been cemented for some time now; its arguments should be open to challenge from other experts in the field, but broad public approval of its mantra about caution and conservatism has also been consistent.
The potential for the Delta variant to frustrate wider opening was widely flagged
Coexisting with this is the desire for the pressure this caution creates to be relieved. That might appear contradictory, but the experience of the last 18 months has inevitably generated conflicting feelings within us, often at the same time. The circumspection of our governors (in reality members of Nphet rather than the Cabinet) may well be vindicated in the long term; the argument that we are an “outlier” in Europe seems somewhat hollow given that those countries pursuing a more aggressive opening policy may well have to reimpose restrictions. What was also notable about this week’s developments was that there was no recommendation to close what has been opened.
What is troubling about the relationship between Nphet and the Government is the extent of the delay in planning and communicating coherently for something known well in advance. The potential for the Delta variant to frustrate wider opening was widely flagged, with Holohan referring to it as the “black cloud on the horizon” on May 20th. Yet according to Government Ministers, the first they heard of Nphet’s modelling projections was on Monday evening.
Given that the Government has made it clear for a long time that it is putting all its eggs in the vaccination basket – and considerable and admirable progress has been made in the rollout of vaccinations, with much appetite to take them – it should have figured out at a much earlier stage whether certain freedoms would apply only to the vaccinated and developed a coherent case for/or against such an approach. And given the strong possibility of distress in August and September, is there a plan B in place for education across the different levels, or will we yet again be facing dramatic, late announcements at the end of the summer?
There has been a fair share of anomalies and nonsense regarding indoor hospitality during the pandemic. This time last year, Independent Clare TD Michael McNamara described the guidelines for pub openings as comical, suggesting it would come as a surprise to international tourists that a “substantial meal will somehow protect them from Covid-19”. Many involved in the trade will rightly see farce too in hotels being able to fill their indoor dining rooms while pubs must remain empty.
This day last year Ireland had the lowest incidence of Covid-19 in western Europe
But in the long run, what is more likely to dominate historical assessment of the Irish response to the pandemic is the bizarrely liberal and self-defeating approach to travel into and from the island, quarantine, and the failure to co-ordinate an island-wide approach, along with the global issue of unpredictability and the challenge of the balance to be struck between empirical data and modelling projections with an ongoing and mutating virus.
This day last year Ireland had the lowest incidence of Covid-19 in western Europe; there were only six confirmed new cases, tourism chiefs were demanding quick reopening of the country and the Government was denying “mixed messages” when it was preparing a green list of countries safe to travel to while at the same time Holohan was warning against travelling abroad. Six months later, in early December, Ireland had the lowest 14-day incidence of infection rate in the European Union, but by January 11th it had the highest daily number of new confirmed cases in the world for every million people, according to figures published by the Our World in Data organisation, with 4,929 new cases.
Demands for clear timelines are understandable, but the experience of the last year has demonstrated clearly that rigid frameworks count for little; neither do emphatic declarations or promises, especially when so many young people in the State remain to be vaccinated.