Lockdown: the only certainty now is that I haven’t a clue
LOCKDOWN – apart from fighting with the teenagers over school work – is relatively easy for me. I miss my friends, but I live in the country and there’s plenty of space to enjoy the sunshine. I get my work done online and go for a ride on the Royal Canal Greenway near my home. I’m managing to get simultaneously fit and fat. This is not, by any means, the worst time in my life.
But it can’t go on and others are enduring real suffering, so the Cabinet must decide how to proceed, stuck between the rock of a medical crisis and the hard place of an economic one.
Do they listen to the doctors urging caution or the voices, many from the media, to restore normality as quickly as possible? There are good reasons to lift lockdown. We can’t afford the €14bn it is estimated the virus will cost the State this year. That cheque has to be written. While lots of people are making the best of working from home, the damage to many businesses is horrendous.
Harm is being done as non-Covid-19 medical treatments are delayed. The mental suffering is real and hard.
The original reason behind lockdown was to flatten the curve and spread out infections so people could be treated – not to eliminate infections.
We leased CityWest, created capacity in ICU and testing has been ramped up. If we ring-fence the clearly vulnerable, why hesitate?
Because we’re just not sure what will happen next. Could there be a second surge? If so, some elements in the media will make Leo Varadkar personally responsible for every single post-lockdown death.
A particularly tragic case will occur. A nurse. Probably a mother. Her face will become the face of government neglect. I’ll call her Nurse Mary.
Every now and then, an unfortunate person like Nurse Mary is selected as a poster child for a real or imagined policy failure.
For homelessness it was Jonathan Corrie. His own family and the State had provided him with shelter but his was a very sad life, despite all the help given to him. His drug addiction killed him, but that didn’t stop the mob from acting as if Enda Kenny had coldly let him die in the street.
When Nurse Mary dies after lockdown has been eased, an inquiry will be demanded and resignations sought.
The worst of emotive language will be used and the same media that now calls for medical advice to be ignored will ask the Government one question: why did you kill Nurse Mary?
It makes it very hard for politicians to make rational decisions when they know they will have to face an irrational response to honest mistakes or the unavoidable consequences of otherwise sound decisions.
To be clear. I agree with the arguments for normality.
We live with risks all the time. If the coronavirus is going to circulate for a year then we need to find ways to live with this risk.
But what do I know? After all, when this thing first started I was worried about over-reacting.
This was just flu, right?
I thought cancelling the rugby match and St Patrick’s Day was wise, but I couldn’t see how shutting the airport was remotely practical. Irish people had to get back from their trips.
Now people think New Zealand’s aggressive lockdown was the way to go. Others say Jacinda Arden is just a bit too smug. New Zealand will have to maintain closed borders or they’ll get hammered in phase two. Humble Portugal, which has had a good phase one, has admitted this is a real prospect.
Some argue Sweden did the right thing avoiding a total lockdown, while Swedes themselves are worried about their own nursing home problem.
Smart people for whom I have huge respect passionately disagree, using the latest trends and models to prove their point.
The only certainty I have now is that I haven’t a clue.
Fortunately, I hold no one’s life in my hands. Neither do my peers. Which shouldn’t stop them challenging policy, but should give them pause when judging those who do.
There’s a great online course called ‘On Bullshit’, from the University of Washington about how data can be used to mislead us.
One of the lecturers, Carl Bergstrom, told the ‘Guardian’ last week: “One of the biggest things that people [in the media] could do to improve would be to recognise that scientific studies, especially in a fast-moving situation like this, are provisional. That’s the nature of science. Anything can be corrected. There’s no absolute truth there.”
As suspicions grow that the virus has been circulating for months, it may take several years before we truly understand which countries got it closer to right than others.
In the meantime, there is no truth. Only best guesses and some luck.
We all have an opinion on what to do next, but it is the Taoiseach’s opinion that counts. Whatever course he takes will do harm.
It is not easy when the media turns diverging views between the National Public Health Emergency Team and within the Cabinet into a headline, even though different views are not merely inevitable but obligatory.
These decisions require real bravery. The commentating class will pay no price if we get it wrong.
If we push the Government in one direction, the least we can do is treat them fairly if it backfires.
It may take several years before we truly understand which countries got it closer to right