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For the first time since the pandemic began, the government has publicly and widely refused to follow the advice of its public health experts, choosing not to impose a return to the lockdown, but to tighten national restrictions as it seeks to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The events of the last few days mark a change in the relationship between the public health experts of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), moving away from a collaborative process where the result was largely pre-agreement by both parties to a system more formalized where NPHET advises and the Government decides.
Those two processes are now further apart than they have been since the virus appeared earlier this year.
As the country faces a second wave of the virus this winter, it feels like a significant moment in the history of Ireland’s response to the pandemic.
The return of the medical director, Dr. Tony Holohan, has been central to these developments. Holohan has been on leave since July, taking care of his wife, who has a serious illness.
He was due back to his desk on Monday. Instead, he returned on Sunday, called an NPHET meeting, and oversaw the explosive recommendation to the government that another lockdown should begin immediately.
The letter, issued Sunday night, reached the media in no time. The first thing most of the ministers and senior officials knew was when their phones vibrated with urgent text messages and WhatsApp.
His reactions were for the most part printable and focused on the role Holohan played in the drama. They were also consistent across government where, based on conversations with various sources from different parts of the administration, the common belief was that Holohan was trying to regain effective control of the policy-making function that NPHET commanded in the initial stage of the pandemic, but that has waned over the summer.
The formal position has always been that NPHET advises and the Government decides. But anyone who has watched the previous administration’s handling of the pandemic soon understood that politicians tended to give in to public health experts; in fact, former health minister Simon Harris took advantage of this fact, frequently saying that he would act in accordance with public health advice. Ireland’s blockade was early, long and strict.
As the virus receded and the opportunity and need to restart social and economic life after the shutdown became apparent, the advice from public health experts became less comprehensive.
In early summer, the outgoing minority government led by Fine Gael tried to reopen as quickly as possible, and if the new administration was a bit more cautious, it was also clear that it felt it should listen to other points of view, not just that of public health.
Corporate lobbyists in particular, desperate to reopen, were screaming to be heard and were heard. It wasn’t that the government no longer listened to public health experts; I was just listening to other people too.
Restrictions
With the advent of the second wave of the pandemic, warnings from public health experts, and their advice to impose restrictions to slow the spread of the virus, have been on the rise in recent weeks. However, the Government has been cautious, aware, say some of its members, not only of the economic consequences of heading towards another confinement – which would be ruinous, many experts insist – but that hospitalizations and deaths from this wave appear to be considerable. less intense than the first wave.
In recent weeks it became quite clear that NPHET was pushing for stricter restrictions. It was also clear that the government was broadcasting its resistance to this idea through informal channels. Taoiseach Micheál Martin, for example, has informally told NPHET not to request restrictions that the government would not sanction.
That period of collaboration seems to have come to an end. A more cautious and political relationship is brewing.
Whatever their intention, most people in the government believe that Holohan tried to make them make a decision. They refused to be turned away, instead risking that existing restrictions, applied more strictly, will be enough to prevent the health service from being overwhelmed.
It is a great decision.
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