Coronavirus doesn’t care whether it’s at a street party or an anti-racist protest
THE day after a night out used to be reserved for swearing about our bank balance, but now we’ve got a whole lot more to think about. As lockdown rules have relaxed, it’s meant that we’ve all gone out for drinks. But in the age of socialising only at a safe, two-metre distance, a lot can go wrong and you can end up in an online video as part of the online lynching, internet vigilantism, and mob justice that has become as much a part of this pandemic as hand sanitiser and sourdough.
Footage of Dublin city centre has been widely circulated online in the past few days with many criticising the videos and saying that it shows a complete lack of respect for Government guidelines.
The Licensed Vintners Association (LVA) said it “utterly condemns” the scenes, saying it is unacceptable and “completely jeopardises” public health.
I’m calling out the hypocrisy of (almost) everyone who rushed to criticise street drinking in Dublin this weekend though, just like those who tut tutted about the queues for Penneys a few weeks back.
If you went online the morning Penneys opened, you’ll know that the phone cameras were waiting there to find out who would be – wait for it – going to the shops that they were fully entitled to go to. (Never mind that they might have no ladderless tights left or that their children might have outgrown all their clothes during lockdown.)
Funnily enough, people didn’t seem to be too annoyed that people were visiting Brown Thomas or other upmarket stores. They were, though, absolutely livid that people were daring to go out and buy a set of cheap pyjamas and a face mask.
I get it. We’ve all been a bit damaged by this pandemic. As coronavirus cases lead to talk of localised lockdowns and conversations around a second wave start up, the day has come to guzzle down pints. Indoors. Outdoors. In pubs. Whose great idea was that anyway?
The Government’s, actually. It was the Government that announced that pubs that serve food could reopen from June 29, and pubs that only serve drinks can reopen from July 20, with social distancing measures. And so, we went out for pints.
Yes, the too-close socialising is happening in pubs and beer gardens, but it’s also happening in gyms, supermarkets, playgrounds, upmarket restaurants and churches. I haven’t come across any outrage about the “reckless” toddlers high-fiveing each other by the swings, or the older woman who jumped the socially distanced queue in my local supermarket last Friday.
Too-close socialising happened explosively at the recent Black Lives Matter marches and social media barely batted an eyelid. In fact, on June 4, more than 1,200 US public health experts signed a letter saying the protests were “vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of black people in the United States”.
Where were the digital vigilantes pointing out that these experts had made a very sudden and dramatic U-turn in their messaging? Even Tony Holohan glossed over the risk of similar protest marches in our own country.
We have been good. We have been very disciplined over the past few months. We flattened the curve – the original intention behind our lockdown. It’s time to allow some normality back in so that we retain a few shreds of our frazzled sanity.
Even without the pandemic, one in four of us will suffer a mental health episode during our lifetimes. The shocks associated with Covid-19 are now pushing many of us towards greater fragility: grief at the loss of loved ones, anxiety at the loss of jobs, social isolation, uncertainty, and fear for the future.
Each of these on its own can trigger problems. In the middle of this pandemic, many of us are battling all of them simultaneously.
An EU-wide survey by Eurofound, also in April 2020, reported that almost a quarter of Irish young people had felt lonely ‘all or most of the time’ over the two-week period prior to being interviewed – the second-highest rate in 17 EU countries.
Commenting on the survey results, Eurofound said that the “lowest levels of mental well-being are reported among young people and those looking for work. Loneliness is emerging as a key aspect of mental health, with one-fifth of young Europeans feeling the strong impact of pandemic restrictions.”
No one social activity is more virtuous than another. The virus isn’t woke or affluent and it doesn’t discriminate. The coronavirus doesn’t care whether it’s attending a street party or an anti-racism protest. And if we look closely at our own actions, we’re probably all a bit guilty of something.
Did you really need to go on a mini break to Kinsale? Did you need to pop into the local shop to pick up fresh bread when you already had a loaf in the freezer?
There’s no such thing as selective social distancing. Pubs are great bastions of Irishness and of community – and in the middle of a global pandemic, we need them more than ever.
Just wash your hands, be sensible and we’ll all be grand.
No one social activity is more virtuous than another. The virus isn’t woke, and it doesn’t discriminate