Una Mullally: Restriction-lifting opens menu of activities from which to choose

With another phase of adjusted restrictions in place across the Republic of Ireland, we now have new choices. If only it was framed as that: a menu of choices from which you choose one or two activities every week or fortnight. Yet when the Government “lifts” restrictions, and “opens up” new spaces and activities, it comes across as permission to do everything. In reality, you can’t have it all, because everything poses some sort of risk, and the more things you’re doing, the more risks you’re taking.

The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) understands risk, which is probably why they pitched the one-or-the-other approach with regards to restaurants or household visits, because it’s not about “and”, it’s about “or”. Some risks are lower than others – outdoor dining versus indoor dining, for example – but all interactions outside of our households pose risks. That’s not about being a party pooper, it’s just the reality of a contagious virus. What we should be thinking about is how do we measure, balance and mitigate risk, and how to communicate that effectively.

Under the new restrictions, at the height of Christmas festivities, you will be able to go to the gym in the morning, a gastropub in the afternoon, the barber after, a restaurant with five other people in the evening, on to the pub for some takeaway pints, and top it off with a household visit at night. This is what the restrictions allow for, and not communicating a more sophisticated approach to the public, by empowering them to smartly weigh up and select from a menu of choices – “one or the other” – is what had us lurching from “opening up” to lockdown. With this unsophisticated approach, it is simply inevitable that cases will rise and the brakes will be back on again.

Government is weighing up the economic needs of retail and hospitality businesses, which is completely fair and necessary. But once again, the logic battle is being lost. It was lost the minute the €9 “substantial meal” restriction came into force. It makes no sense that outdoor market stalls are flagged as potentially forbidden when indoor shops will be open. It makes no sense that theatres stay closed when cinemas open. It makes no sense that outdoor gigs or socially distanced indoor ones can’t happen, when restaurants can open.

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Social distancing

There is also an issue with people conflating restrictions with public health advice and guidelines. This is due to poor communication from the Government, and also how certain restrictions being lifted actually creates a context for public health advice and guidelines being breached. Restrictions change, the public health advice and guidelines remain the same. The fundamentals remain: social distancing at two metres with people outside of your household both indoors and outdoors; wash your hands regularly; wear a mask indoors outside of your own household. We know them well. But when restrictions change, it confuses that advice. Now that gastropubs are reopening, we have to ask basic questions about the guidelines, such as: how do you maintain social distancing if you go to the pub with two friends? You can’t. It’s impossible. How do you maintain social distancing at a restaurant table with five other people? You can’t. It’s impossible.

Restaurateurs know that Nphet advised against them opening. That is the public health advice, which the Government is once again overriding. This – along with the financial cost of reopening, and the accompanying stress and logistical wrangling – is why some restaurants, even very successful ones, will remain closed for December.

One thing we know for sure is that outdoors is safer than indoors. It is incredible that outdoor socialising has still not been properly facilitated around the country. It is in pockets, but it required more than exceptions, and instead a radical and smart approach to moving life outside. This came to a head with the embarrassing and frankly stupid behaviour of Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly in reaction to a video of people drinking on South William Street in Dublin.

Outdoor interaction

The idea that a Minister would bring a memo to Cabinet on the back of a video posted to social media is already ridiculous, but beyond that, no one seemed to get that the people who were drinking and socialising outside were doing so because they thought they were doing the right thing. If they didn’t care about public health advice, everyone drinking on the street would instead be in a house or an apartment somewhere, boozing away together in comfort and warmth.

Let's have some outdoor seating and create a controlled environment on the street to hang out safely

We should be facilitating outdoor socialising. The political message in reaction to that video shouldn’t have been banning takeaway pints (as if people couldn’t just as easily walk outside with a can of beer from Tesco), but to say: we know you think outdoors is better, and you’re right, so let’s have some outdoor seating and create a controlled environment on the street, that way you can meet your friends two metres from one and other, buy your drinks, and hang out safely without guidelines being breached.

This month, many people will make their own calls to mitigate risk. But as we continue living in a pandemic, we must empower people to make smart choices, offer autonomy instead of infantilisation, and centre logic at the heart of Government messaging. The public isn’t stupid, and dangling Christmas as a treat, while dropping restrictions without a “menu”-type framing and simultaneously writing fines (which don’t work) into law, creates a discombobulating and confusing atmosphere. That’s now the context in which the latest restrictions exist, while adherence to public health guidelines will once again start to fall apart.