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Politicians don’t panic, unofficially, but there was more than a hint of despair in the latest responses from the Irish and British governments to the growing number of Covid-19 cases.
Both Micheál Martin and Boris Johnson were forced to close the doors of society on Wednesday given the shortage of alternative ways they have to fight the virus.
Almost a year since we began to fight the disease, the confinement remains the alternative response of politicians when they can no longer ignore the warnings of public health officials.
With the decision to delay the reopening of schools in the Republic, the last point of the government’s strategy to address Covid-19 has been removed.
Ministers may argue that the delay is only a few days, but we’ve heard a similar saying before regarding school closings and the length of closures in general.
As a nation, we are now closing our schools and depriving our students of a proper education, while at the same time leaving licenses open. This despite the fact that alcohol has been repeatedly identified as a driver of unsafe socialization and although the largest increases in the number of cases are occurring in people aged 18 to 34 years, traditionally the highest alcohol users.
The same criticisms can be made of Martin’s speech that were made of earlier Taoisigh announcements. No mention is made of effective quarantine arrangements, for example, or measures to address the border problem.
Border counties
While the number of cases is increasing across the country, it is now highest in three border counties: Donegal, Monaghan and Louth. This has been the trend for months, but no significant action has been taken as of this month thanks to lockdown decisions in both jurisdictions.
And while the Johnson government may have responded to the crisis for much of this year, the UK appears to be leading the way in terms of vaccine approvals and genetic research on the virus.
Most of the nursing home residents in the north have already been vaccinated, while the Republic’s vaccination program in nursing homes only begins next week.
This new lock will work up to a point. Things will get worse for a while and then get better. But then what?
The UK has approved two vaccines while Ireland awaits decisions from the European Medicines Agency, which has taken a more “relaxed” approach to authorizations with no visible benefit so far.
At this stage it is unclear whether the newer variants of the virus in the UK and South Africa are as big of a threat as they have been claimed to be, but if this proves the case, we will be indebted to the work of scientists in London and Porton. Down, not Brussels.
This new lock will work up to a point. The Christmas effect will disappear; most people will go into hiding by January. Things will get worse for a while and then get better.
But then what?
The old questions remain; What do you do then? Will the restrictions be lifted at the end of January, as we did earlier this month? Or do you continue the confinement until spring, with all that that entails?
Single digit
Given the set of measures being implemented, the failures in quarantine and other areas, and the lower compliance in sectors of the population, there is no prospect of eliminating the virus or reducing the numbers to, say, single digits.
Ireland, it must be said, is not alone in Europe facing this dilemma. Many countries with good past records have fallen by the wayside; including ourselves, with the fastest growing number of cases on the continent today.
It follows that the only game in town as of now is the vaccine. Should we follow the emergency clearance route used by the UK? Should we focus on giving the maximum number of people a first dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, rather than keeping two doses for a smaller group?
We have to show promptness and agility in rolling out the options that exist if we are to lift the blinds again in early 2021.
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