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A NATIONAL LEVEL 3 status is like a holding pattern over Gatwick: round and round, a little up, a little down, burning fuel, delaying landing, going nowhere and burning time.
Unfortunately we are still in a pandemic and at the beginning of the second wave in Ireland. The first wave was in February and March: the second is growing now. During August it sprouted again in Dublin, in September in the rest of the country.
Leaders around the world face the challenge of leading wisely through this unprecedented crisis that, while it affects our health more immediately, it also affects every other aspect of our lives.
It affects our being with others, mourning those we have lost, our ability to support the vulnerable in our society, our ability to provide a home for people to live, our celebration of the great events of our lives, our means subsistence, inequality. distribution of resources in our world.
The Covid waiting pattern
This infectious disease, like others, is inherently divisive and polarizing, and at the same time retrograde. It affects the most vulnerable individuals, families and groups disproportionately more than others. These characteristics make the decisions necessary to lead to the voluntary cooperation of the majority of five million people more difficult.
While Covid numbers in Dublin increased in August, during September there has been a gradual but persistent increase in the number of SARS CoV2 cases in most counties in Ireland, outside of Dublin.
Again, we are experiencing outbreaks among vulnerable groups and in crowded homes, nursing homes, hospitals, and crowded workplaces, as well as many in private homes.
This increase was not as rapid or as dramatic as that of March, and most cases occur in young people, who do not die quickly from lung failure, with rare exceptions.
However, some of the youngsters may have scars on their lungs or heart and may experience chronic fatigue. We also know that the virus is currently spreading to older people, who are getting sick. Unsurprisingly, it is spreading again to hospitals and nursing homes.
The number of Covid-19 cases and outbreaks and hospitalizations have stabilized in the last two weeks in Dublin, and the Level 3 restrictions appear to have had some impact. Maybe the numbers will start to drop a bit more.
But this will take a long time, much like losing your money at 1% negative interest per week. Leveling just means staying the same, maybe for months or years. These are years of Level 3 restrictions!
In my opinion, this is not a desirable long-term exit from this pandemic. It’s like circling for an unknown period of time in a waiting pattern over Gatwick, as most of us have done for hours before 2020 – suspended time, life delayed until the plane runs out of fuel.
Time is against us
So in my opinion, and in the opinions of NPHET, we need decisive action soon to address this increase in Covid-19 in Ireland. The challenge is to do this while ensuring that as much of our children’s education as possible and our productive economy succeed and survive at the same time.
Every company and government department, in my opinion, should now be testing and testing plans for business continuity on level 4 and 5 restrictions. Yesterday’s government decision, while it may give us time to prepare, just delays the inevitable need for more restrictions.
In our own personal lives, many of us have already wisely restricted the things we do: like having single-household people visit us in our bubble, washing hands, coughing, wearing a mask in crowded places, and working from home.
Internationally, Ireland can work with European partners for a Covid-19 free Europe. We can work with the UK on a joint approach to this, as two islands.
In Ireland and Europe we could achieve what most countries in the Asia-Pacific region have achieved through a shorter period of more severe restrictions, where their economies, air travel, sports and social life are now returning to what they were. want.
The successful countries of Asia and the Pacific have diverse systems of government: some are authoritarian and others are fiercely democratic. Internal flights in China have been in operation for months.
Travel between Australia without Covid and New Zealand has reopened. In Europe we could follow the same model in a future where SARS CoV2 is controlled and its spread on our land is completely stopped, as we did with ‘SARS1’ in 2003.
Our leaders have a difficult job and must be given the space and encouragement to lead us boldly and from the front in a way that protects health.
They have done this before by introducing a workplace smoking ban, or a plastic bag tax, or a ban on selling smoked charcoal in Dublin, or effective and unprecedented actions to control Covid-19 in March. 2020.
No news is bad news
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Professor Sam McConkey is Vice Dean and Director of the Department of Tropical Medicine and International Health at the RCSI School of Medicine and Health Sciences and President of the Infectious Diseases Society of Ireland.
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