Looking for a Christmas miracle? Don’t go on the lash for two weeks
IF YOU told someone who dabbles in cocaine that their fun times are fuelling murder and bloodshed, would they stop? Probably not. They may be dimly aware the price of their high comes with the risk a bus driver might get sprayed with bullets somewhere, courtesy of the mercurial drug trade they support, but a line is a line.
So as we enter another six weeks of staying at home (or so we hope), mostly for the greater good of the elderly and vulnerable, many will comply with tight restrictions; but it seems many won’t.
People are being asked to lose their jobs, their social lives, their travel plans, and their friendships over the chance that someone they may not know gets really sick. The social solidarity and the togetherness which won out the last time around may be difficult to replicate.
This time we are armed with better information and a greater immunity to fear.
Hence, it comes as no surprise that gardaí will be given new powers to call to homes and break up house parties, fining those who throw them.
The Government is clearly anticipating non-compliance.
Is it right? Will our hedonistic tendencies be reined in until we can sit together again safely, or will there be a breakdown in resolve?
“Back in March, the pendulum swung to the side of fear, anxiety, stress, where we were following protocols and doing the Riverdance to avoid someone on the street. Then the taste of freedom came and the pendulum swung really far to the other side,” Dublin-based psychiatrist Gerry Hickey says.
“Trying to get it back into the middle in the next few weeks will be hard.”
People like to interpret statistics to suit their world view: so, if infection numbers are high but the numbers of people on ventilators are relatively low and there are only 30 people in ICU, then it’s OK to call over to the mate’s gaff with a bag of cans and bottle of cheap vodka.
Under the banner of ‘I’m done with Covid’, the insidiousness of the disease can happily be ignored by those who might venture to a dwelling or field near you for a few quiet drinks or a full-on rave.
“There’s no nightclub scene or no bar scene, so drinking and drug-taking takes place at house parties and parks. As restrictions increase, the get-togethers will get smaller again, but people who want to party will continue to do so. If people want to drink and use drugs and socialise, they will find a way. There can be a return to adolescent drinking,” Dr Colin O’Gara, head of Addiction Services at St John of God Hospital in Dublin, told me, adding that alcohol consumption and problem drinking is expected to increase in the coming weeks.
Illicit drinking was something we used to pride ourselves on before it became unfashionable. We look back with fondness on the naggins of vodka and cans of Ritz consumed outside the Dart station.
We like to think we’ve moved on from the reputation of uncontrollable heathens, but will the next few weeks be an Icarus moment for Ireland?
“There’s an alliance of compliance – where people are removing themselves from blame,” Hickey says. “‘We’re fine, we just had a few people over – it’s the other people who are causing it, not us’.”
I’m always torn between agreeing with people who want lockdown and agreeing with those who don’t, but ultimately, in the absence of a robust government plan for the second wave, an abandonment of contact tracing during the summer, and a disturbing lack of ICU staff, we are left with little choice but to stay home, bored and alone.
I’m starting to feel like a hostage but I’m 45 so I won’t be looking for late-night shebeens. The idea of potentially 5,000 cases per day or more, even if mostly asymptomatic, takes the fun out of it.
The trick is that the usual suspects, including the loose house-partiers, the GAA dressing-room revellers, the people awaiting results who decide to go on pub crawls, and the I-couldn’t-care-lessers, who were directly responsible for the spread of the virus, feel the same way.
Can you wait for the promised land of Christmas, when we can allegedly mingle again? Then, when the virus returns as predicted in January and February, we can collectively declare anarchy.
If everyone manages not to go on the lash, before we officially go on the lash, then we will have achieved something we’ve never managed before.
Then a Covid Christmas miracle may still be possible.
I live in hope.
‘People are removing themselves from blame, “We’re fine, we just had a few people over…”’