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Last week’s cabinet committee on Covid-19 had been lingering for hours as ministers and senior officials grappled with the new reality that public health experts had presented to the government.
There was no question about it, Ireland and Dublin especially, was experiencing an increase in coronavirus infections. Whether you called it the second wave or not, it was here, it was growing and they knew they would have to take action and quickly.
And yet there was a reluctance, even in the face of NPHET’s warnings, to re-enter the shutdown.
With schools open, the promised reopening of pubs, and the possibility of travel restrictions being eased, people were seeking a return to some form of normalcy. Some ministers and some officials present did not want to start moving in the opposite direction.
And so Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe and Climate Change Minister Eamon Ryan, both heavyweight figures in this administration, argued against the new restrictions that would effectively shut down restaurants and pubs in the capital.
Both were concerned about the economic and social consequences of returning to closure. Some officers present looked at Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, expecting him to weigh behind Ryan and Donohoe. But Varadkar was almost silent.
It was Varadkar who led the last government to a swift and total shutdown in March, emerging in early summer with broad public approval for its handling of the crisis.
During the summer, he pushed to open up the economy at a faster pace. But now it wasn’t. “Leo has changed,” says a government insider. “He is much more cautious now.”
“You’ve been looking at the data,” said another, “and you understand it.”
Winter is coming
According to several people familiar with the discussions at the highest level, this is the mood throughout the government now. “What has made the British stumble is that they say things will be fine and then it turns out that they are not going well,” says one person.
“We have to avoid that.” A few weeks ago, ministers expected an autumn of cautious reopening. It might have been too much to call optimism, but it wasn’t the other way around. Is now. “Now public health comes first,” says a source. “The economy will just have to wait.”
Public health experts knew this was going to happen for weeks. Simon Harris, the former health minister who now has the higher education portfolio and who was closest to public health experts during the spring close, warned his cabinet colleagues last week to delay the implementation of the health tips public would bite them again.
In the last week or ten days, the political leadership has caught up with public health experts. “Public health,” says a Cabinet source, “is back in the driver’s seat.”
Local closings
This is the expectation now of ministers, high officials and people of the highest level of government.
Here’s what fall and winter look like: frenzied assessments of local peaks, new restrictions, possible relaxation, they wait, if mini-closures are observed long enough, desperation to avoid the reimposition of a full national shutdown, and fear gnawing Ultimately, it might be necessary.
Last week it was Dublin; this week it was Donegal. On Friday night, the government announced that additional restrictions would be applied to tertiary universities. “I knew universities would be a problem,” complained a senior official.
Next week it could be Cork and Galway. And Waterford and Limerick adds a font.
In the UK, there is now talk of a “circuit breaker” – a brief return to the national lockdown to stop the spread of the virus.
At least one senior Irish figure believes that it will ultimately be inevitable here. The October midterm break, the source says, is the obvious time.
Earlier this week, a Swedish public health expert, Dr. Johan Giesecke, told the Oireachtas committee that the virus should be allowed to spread in a controlled manner among people under the age of 60.
In Sweden, there has not been a massive lockdown like most other countries, and normal life, or at least more normal than elsewhere, has more or less continued. But Sweden has much higher death rates than its neighbors (though lower than several other European countries where closures were instituted).
In any case, the ministers are not convinced. They are also not convinced by calls for a “zero Covid” strategy to completely eliminate the virus and keep it off the island. They believe that Ireland cannot bear the required closure. So they continue to plow the middle road.
Even if Ireland does not take the Swedish approach, officials are willing to point to the broader European context. Spain and France are experiencing large increases in the virus; France had nearly 13,000 new cases on Thursday; Spain the same earlier this week.
Britain had the worst day in its history on Thursday, with 6,178 new cases. The Czech health minister has resigned. Even in Germany, a symbol of virus management, cases have been increasing in September.
If this is not the second wave of Europe, it is something very similar.
Politics is back
On Thursday, HSE launched its winter plan, with a budget 15 times greater than the equivalent of last year. Health Minister Stephen Donnelly declared it a “perfect storm” for the healthcare system. However, in the most obvious metaphor of the day, Donnelly wasn’t really at the launch. You haven’t felt well, you had a Covid test last week, which came back negative, and you are working from home.
Donnelly has been under pressure in this highly pressurized job in recent weeks. Always oblivious to the Fianna Fail parliamentary party, his colleagues have not been quick to defend him. “Donnelly’s Fury at FF” screamed the front page headline of the Daily Mail on Wednesday, reporting his discontent with the minister’s performance.
In other ways, politics as normal is asserting itself. Opposition parties, particularly Sinn Féin, are increasingly critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic. Where in spring the Opposition united around the flag and the Government, the panorama is now much more fractured. As it becomes clear that it will be the central issue in public life for the foreseeable future, the pandemic is becoming another controversial political space.
There is nothing necessarily wrong with that – it is the Opposition’s job to question the Government – but it is unlikely to promote the kind of national consensus that has been evident in places where the pandemic has been successfully managed, such as Germany.
As if to emphasize the differences between Ireland and Germany, Berlin this week declared Dublin a “Covid-19 risk area,” requiring anyone arriving from the Irish capital to undergo a free Covid-19 test.
The Irish Times correspondent in Berlin, Derek Scally, has contrasted the situation between the two countries: in Germany, people continue to live with the virus without letting it take over. In Ireland, there is an atmosphere of fear.
This week, the Health Department’s public opinion investigation underscored that climate of public apprehension. Only 17% of those surveyed believe that the worst of the crisis is behind us: 47% believe that the worst is yet to come.
As of this week, there are a few more politicians among that number.
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