We must manage the Border to stop the spread of Covid-19

Great news, a Covid vaccine is coming!

But we can’t let our guard down now--it will take many months to fully roll it out, and it remains only one important tool in our toolbox. In the meantime, we must deploy parallel strategies to suppress Covid-19 so that health and business can get back to normal as soon as possible.

Failing that, we will face more lockdowns and risks, for example, the new Covid strain revealed this week in England, which could spread to Ireland given significant traffic between the two jurisdictions. Also this week, Micheál Martin warned us about an impending January lockdown, as have many experts.

Managing the Border with Northern Ireland is one key strategy that must be part of our toolbox. Unfortunately, the political class has largely looked the other way on this issue, due to its sensitivity.

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The Border, it is claimed, is so porous and impossible to police that no government will ever be able to prevent people crossing it if they want to, and so the virus can never be kept out of the Republic.

True, the Border is charged with symbolic and real tensions, but it is not impossible to work around them.

Here’s how.

First, we need to acknowledge that it is acceptable to manage the Border in order to solve an acute problem like Covid, which is temporary and apolitical. Imagine that there was a big chemical spill on the border. We would immediately put some kind of checkpoints on the roads crossing the border so that cars don’t drive right into the spill. Is there anybody who would protest such health and safety measures?

But what’s the difference between a spill and a virus? Not much. They’re both natural and temporary dangers from which people North and South must be protected. They both have nothing to do with politics or trade barriers. They both require action.

Second, during Level 5, Garda checkpoints on the border have regulated traffic and compliance has been good. We would simply need to do it more systematically. Moreover, the Border was policed in 2001 during the foot-and-mouth crisis, another virus that posed a threat to the Irish economy.

Third, we must realise that in our fight against Covid, Border and non-Border counties are very similar and should be treated as such. If any county is highly infected, we don’t want Covid to spill out and infect other parts of the country - so we restrict movements out of that county (like we did successfully in Laois, Offaly and Kildare). Conversely, if a county has near zero cases, we don’t want other parts of the country to infect it back - so we restrict movements into that county.

The rule holds for non-Border and Border counties alike. The only difference is that for Bborder counties, some of the neighbours are counties that happen to be in Northern Ireland. But in all cases, the strategy is entirely guided by the data on case numbers. It’s not about the border, it’s about where the virus is. If Dublin is highly infected, we deal with Dublin. If it’s a county on the Border, we deal with it.

Fourth-and perhaps most importantly-we must put the Border in perspective: we are lucky that it is actually not the main problem with Covid for Ireland (travel from overseas is the key problem). So we are not faced with an impossible mission to block a flood of cases from the North. On the contrary, all we need to do is to manage the area effectively to prevent outbreaks from spreading, which is a more feasible task.

But I can already hear the objection: surely we can’t restrict the movements of farmers, school children and workers who cross the Border daily?

Answer: indeed, we can’t - so we don’t restrict those people’s movement across the border. They’d be given special permits, just like essential workers and those undergoing medical procedures across the Border.

Is this a realistic solution? Yes, they did it in Australia (and elsewhere), and it worked so well that they are basically at zero Covid now. Australia established “bubble zones” along their internal borders. Residents of those bubble zones could cross the Border freely. Those living outside the bubble needed permits. We’d need to adapt those principles to Ireland’s geographic peculiarities, but that’s what the government is paid for.

Finally, why not forget about the Border and co-operate with the North to keep the island’s external borders tightly controlled? This could be done by implementing a 14-day mandatory quarantine for all incoming travellers who would be transported straight from the airports to designated hotels. Alternatively, a system combining pre-flight tests, rapid testing upon entry and a vaccination passports would be worth exploring.

Of course, North-South co-operation would be better and easier. But the problem is that it is proceeding at a snail’s pace. So by all means, let’s not give up on North-South co-operation, but we also need an immediate plan to clear the virus from the Republic. And that requires managing areas along the border temporarily. Otherwise, our health and economy will keep suffering unnecessarily.

Julien Mercille is Associate Professor in the School of Geography, University College Dublin and a member of the Independent Scientific Advocacy Group (ISAG)