Dr Cillian De Gascun: ‘I don’t see sport as an at-all-cost thing’

Dr Cillian de Gascun is a movie buff. The banner picture on his Twitter handle is the billboard advertisement for Amity Island in Jaws, where a graffiti artist has painted this massive black fin near a surfer, who is screaming “Help Shark!!!”

The iconic scene is continually apt during this pandemic. Matt Hooper, the young oceanographer, and Brody, the chief of police, have cornered Mayor Larry Vaughn to plead with him to shut the beaches. They state their case with facts and common sense, but Larry can smell those "summer dollars."

Hooper: "You are not going to have a summer unless you deal with this problem!"

Chief Brody: "We are not only going to have to close the beaches, we are going to have to hire someone to kill the shark!"

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Hooper: "You either kill this animal or cut off its food supply."

Mayor Vaughn (pointing at the billboard): "Brody, sick vandalism. That is a deliberate mutilation of a public service message. Now I want those little paint-happy bastards caught and hung up by their buster browns!"

Hooper: "Mr Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It really is miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks. And that's all. Why don't you take a long close look at this sign - those proportions are correct."

Mayor Vaughn: "Love to prove that wouldn't you? Get your name into the National Geographic."

Chief Brody: "Larry, if we make an effort today we might be able to save August."

Mayor Vaughn: "August! For Christ sake tomorrow is the fourth of July and we will be open for business. It is going to be one of the best summers we ever had."

Rinse, repeat ad nauseam.

Last April, the Nphet virologist predicted empty stadiums for the current Six Nations. Ten months later he offers the same counsel on how sport can begin to rebuild after financial collapse. The message takes time to compute. Vaccines are beyond helpful, but suppression is the only way to safely reopen the economy.

In November, Dr De Gascun spoke to the Joint Committee of Transport and Communications about Covid-19 becoming “endemic in the population.” He informed the politicians that viruses “don’t just disappear.” He spoke in decades not years. He may as well have been screaming into an airplane propeller.

Now, Taoiseach and Tánaiste are scrambling to appease the rising unease of their citizens. "New Covid restrictions to target foreign travel" splashed The Irish Times this week, as the coalition Government inches towards inevitable measures 13 months after the virus landed on these shores.

It is established that Australia and New Zealand have geographical and political advantages over the UK and Ireland but a workable, multi-jurisdictional plan is now crucial for sport to become a viable business again.

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How do you handle stress?

“I am not entirely sure to be honest. It’s a strange one. Normally I would be a big fan of the cinema but I haven’t had that as a way of switching off. I suppose I watch some movies. On a Friday or Saturday night I would have a glass of wine but the problem even with that is you never know when something is going to come up so you can’t really afford to treat weekends as normal weekends.

“I am watching more sport than ever since it came back.”

This eventually leads to a rugby question but the South African strain is proving resistant to the Astrazeneca vaccine, how much does this concern you?

“It is certainly a concern but probably not hugely surprising when we look at other respiratory viruses. This can be addressed by updating the vaccine and this can be done fairly quickly.

"The thing we need to be wary of is people cannot travel directly to Ireland from South Africa so we must pick them up if they come through London, Paris or Brussels. "

The Lions chairman, Jason Leonard, said this week that they “remain committed to a traditional tour of South Africa” - how feasible is a 60-strong touring party moving from city to city?

“I think it very difficult to see it at this point in time. Given where we are virus-wise.

"It would be great to see the Lions go ahead but you really have to put it in the context of community transmission. South Africa has a highly transmissible virus that is resistant to vaccination so that is not the destination you would be hoping for.

“Potentially it could be done in the UK, if everyone came over and quarantined.”

The Tokyo Olympics is full steam ahead, when you hear that 11,000 athletes will travel to Japan, what are you thinking?

“It comes back to what we were saying. Obviously sport is important but, to me, I don’t see it as an at-all-cost thing. The Olympics is bringing people from hundreds of different countries to a congested, complicated setting. I would be concerned at this point in time, based on the level of community transmission of the virus in a number of countries.

“Maybe athletes will be vaccinated but in a number of countries athletes will not be high up the priority list. It is a difficult one. I know the authorities are very bullish about the Olympics, but I would adopt a far more cautious approach as it is an event that is tailor made for virus transmission. An athletes’ village is potentially manageable, but it is a very risky thing to do.”

The financial engine of sport in this country is fuelled by supporters, what has worked in other countries that Ireland should adopt in order to bring people back into stadiums?

"I was watching the Super Bowl last night. They controlled the number of people in the stadiums but the footage from around Tampa before the game is what concerns me. You can control people in stadiums because we have large capacity and they can be spread out but the socialising before and after is very difficult to manage.

“We have a long journey to go before we have mass gatherings of a significant size because we still have such a high level of virus circulating.

“The other thing about larger gatherings is if you have a problem afterwards it comes back to having the public infrastructure in place that allows you to track and trace the spread of the infection. Managing something like that in real time is something - purely from a resourcing issue - we have struggled to implement.”

Let’s say the numbers of infection in Ireland were down to single digits - like last summer - the track and trace system does not exist to put people into stadiums?

“We still have insufficient numbers of specialists in public health medicine to oversee the number of investigations that need to be carried out.

“That’s where the travel element comes into it. That’s one thing we can learn from New Zealand or Australia - whether it is officially zero Covid or just trying to get case numbers down - we are an island, and that should be of benefit because the virus has to travel to come here with people on planes or boats.

“We should be able to control what is coming in as much as possible. Now, it will still take us time. If we continue at the rate we are going it will still be another four to six weeks away from getting it down below a couple of hundred cases a day. That is obviously very hard as people are in enhanced restrictions since just after Christmas.

“I know the numbers travelling in have dropped massively compared with the numbers in normal times but all it takes is a couple of cases coming in every day undetected, and you can seed outbreaks in the community again. It makes it very difficult to control.”

In Perth recently they snapped into a five day lockdown after one positive case of a security guard working in hotel quarantine - can you see Ireland ever reaching that level of commitment to suppress the virus?

“I genuinely don’t know. I think the public would accept that if they think it would be successful.

“It is very challenging to see how we could implement it. Again, just coming back to a resource issue, whether we are using police or defence forces or healthcare staff - we have never done anything like that before . . .”

Neither had Australia . . .

“There is absolutely a model there. But, again, in order to be able to do that and respond quickly in an agile way you just need the numbers down at a really low level.

“If you think back to the summer we were down to reporting single digits of cases per day but we were not doing retrospective contract tracing at that time. So, we were struggling to keep ahead of the infection. If we can get to really low numbers that is exactly what you do.”

If we get to July 2021 in a similar state as last summer, what mistakes do you think will be repeated and what will be avoided?

“I think if we go back to May, June 2020 there was a general sense that we had come through the worst and along the lines of influenza we had weathered the respiratory season and the virus was gone.

“I don’t think people intentionally got complacent but they did start to travel and we had tourists coming into the country. The Spanish variant of the virus became dominant here after the summer because of international travel.”

Did that infuriate you at that time?

“If I am honest there was a little bit of me thinking, ‘Is that it?’ - like the title of Bob Geldof’s book. We expected a second wave but there was no guarantee. We kept numbers quite low for quite a while but I think as people’s behaviour changed - just human nature - we didn’t appreciate the seriousness of what would happen if we let this get out of control again.

“Whether we didn’t fully appreciate that back in the summer or didn’t fully get the message across to people, one of the unfortunate benefits of what happened over Christmas is I think people now realise we are in this for the long haul.”

We keep looking to Australia and New Zealand - could we achieve something similar if Northern Ireland and the conservative government were on board - are you seeing any evidence of improved communication across the jurisdictions?

“The challenge for us in many respects is the EU. But, you’re right, from a local perspective if ourselves and the North can agree a common strategy you could get to a situation where we have very low levels of infection and you monitor everything coming in and going out.

“It would be nice if we could get to a level of co-operation as that would allow large groups of supporters in the stadiums.”

Is any of this happening?

“To be fair to government it is a very difficult challenge to balance all the various priorities for the country. They have to deal with the political reality on a daily basis with the UK and the North, and whether that is an option.

“If we cannot get an all-Ireland approach it is very difficult to see how we can control importation of infection with people moving freely.

“I struggle to see very large gatherings along the lines of New Zealand or Australia unless the UK and ourselves decide to put an agreement in pace and adopt a joint approach.”

Would you agree that there is too much politics being played in Ireland in comparison to other countries fighting the same virus?

“I am sure there have been political struggles across the board but we are unique with two jurisdictions on a small island.

“Sometimes Government probably feel they can’t make decisions because the public won’t go with them. That is one of the key elements in the pandemic, that you keep the public with you as much as you can. Enforcement can be part of your strategy but you really need people to buy into what you are trying to do.

“I am not sure of the sentiment north of the border but from what I can see in the Republic people would be happy to adopt an all-Ireland approach if it would speed up a return to some semblance of normality.”

When the numbers come down what would be the impact of 14 days of quarantine - where the defence forces escort people from airplane to hotel rooms?

“This allows public health to work on the outbreaks we have in the community. It takes pressure off the system and allows us to work on what is already here.”

So essentially, Cillian, this is the only way the sports industry - GAA, FAI, IRFU and their overwhelming dependence on full stadiums - can survive?

“This is beyond my area of knowledge and expertise but the question is: how do you implement it on a sustainable basis because obviously we have a finite quarantine capacity. My understanding of Australia and New Zealand is they are restricting the number of flights that are landing in their countries on the basis that they have a fixed capacity for quarantine.

“Obviously we are such an open country here, I don’t know if that is sustainable in terms of economic growth or economic viability. I don’t know what that magic number is and people are joking that ‘sure we have thousands of empty hotel rooms’ and we probably have.”

We certainly do.

“This is one of those times that you bemoan the lack of a large, well resourced defence force because that is what a lot of other countries are doing. I know our defence forces have been very helpful but they are small in number and not in a position to take on something like this on a sustainable basis.

“Obviously security is big issue. There is also the indemnity for the state if something were to happen to these people in quarantine. Non-Covid related.

“There has to be an element of quarantine, and it is just a question of how politically or economically sustainable it is for a prolonged period of time.

“Vaccination provides us with another layer of protection.”

We are having a very similar conversation to what we had last April, does it feel like one continuous loop?

“It does. It’s funny you have good days and bad days. When we spoke last year I certainly didn’t envisage having three vaccines on the island by January. That is a really positive development.

“I think people are fed up now. Everyone wants everything to happen immediately. But the HSE and National Immunisation Office have a really good track record of delivering vaccines to the population. Let’s let the system work.”

What did you get up to during December?

“I didn’t really do anything because I felt that I shouldn’t and there was also the concern of being seen to be doing something when it really wasn’t recommended.”

De Gascun spotted sculling pints etc?

“Yeah, it just wasn’t worth it. I saw immediate family over Christmas Day, Stephen’s Day. I didn’t go into town, didn’t go to a restaurant in the run up to Christmas. I met up with one other friend whose mother is in a nursing home and he travelled home to see her, and he quarantined for two weeks when he came back. So I met up with him. That was all I did over the Christmas period.

“My concern now is I haven’t seen mum since Christmas as she is in her seventies and I would be the one who would be introducing infection to the house.

“I have to say I miss being able to go out purely because I am single, so I live alone, even from the point of view of being able to chat to someone and meet someone.”

Looking into your crystal ball, how far away is amateur sport from returning? For example, teenagers getting back playing matches?

“I really admire what the GAA achieved last year and what they were able to get done. When we talk about lessons, that might be a model for sport to come back.

“Teenagers have had such a hard time. It is so important they can play for so many reasons and we know that group is less likely to be infected but there is the potential of them bringing it home.

“If there is a way that sport can come back as a greater priority in the coming months we should look at that because what we saw, in context of outbreaks associated with sporting activities, it really came down to the socialisation around it.

“Sport is important enough for people to follow the guidance if they can play a match and go straight home after. I think people will make that sacrifice because the games are so important to them.

“The key thing is to get schools back first. Then we can look at the activities that go along with that. The challenge is to have something equitable across the board. A Blackrock or St Michael’s could, presumably, throw money at this if they wanted to get their senior cup teams tested once a week or twice a week but smaller schools won’t be in a position to do that. Whatever the department of education and department of sport decide to do it must be equitable across the board and not just for the schools with money.

"Wasn't there a plea from [Green Party Senator Vincent Martin] last year for Clongowes and Newbridge be allowed to play the senior cup final behind closed doors?"

The echo chamber in full effect.

“It is really difficult but it all comes back to the level of community transmission.”

Which is worse, the cure or the disease?

“The disease is far worse as far as I am concerned. Don’t get me wrong, post-vaccination and whatever sort of post-Covid normality there is, there will be knock on effects from the pandemic in the health service and with mental health and education, but after what we saw over December and January, if the virus gets out of control it still causes significant damage.

“We need to bring that under control and everything else follows on from there.”