SUCCESS DEPENDS ON SWIFT REACTIONS TO NEW THREATS

IT’S always been known in disease prevention, the safest risk is the one you didn’t take. With Covid-19, anything left open to chance is an invitation to catastrophe. So it was hardly a complete shock to hear the UK announce British, or Irish, residents – arriving from 33 countries deemed high risk – must go into quarantine.

The UK is going all out with a swingeing suite of stringent new rules aimed at keeping new variants out. They include jail time for those who break the rules and heavy fines.

So how are we reacting?

The Government is “considering” a further tightening of restrictions on international travel, Transport Minister Eamon Ryan has said.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said that legislation would be published next week on quarantine hotels in Ireland. The wonder is such moves were not made sooner; but let’s be glad a response commensurate to the risk is finally being coordinated.

A total of 11,901 people flew into Dublin Airport in the first week of February. The figures were released amid warnings about Dublin being used as a back-door into the UK.

As far back as last November, the North’s health minister, Robin Swann, raised a number of concerns with our Government about the “Dublin Dodge”.

The term applied to a situation whereby people could fly in to Dublin Airport and then head jauntily over the Border without quarantining.

Our first responses to this crisis, it should be recognised, were made under the compulsion to react immediately.

But the past year has taught us much; the outstanding lesson is to not repeat the mistakes made by other countries.

We were told repeatedly that Covid-19 does not respect borders.

Yet this is the first week gardaí have imposed fines on people making unwarranted trips across the Border.

Today we reveal the full toll taken on frontline workers in our hospitals. Staff are out on their feet trying to cope with the third wave. Today we also give details of the crippling financial costs. Our country is making the most concerted effort in history to cooperate to get through the pandemic.

Our success depends on swift reactions and being able to adapt to emerging threats instantly.

The pandemic has demonstrated mercilessly, how it pays off so much better if we prepare and prevent, as opposed to slipping into repair and repent scenarios.

Far from being criticised in the UK – for what some would regard as their draconian new travel laws – Mr Johnson’s government is under fire for acting too late to restrict the spread of new variants and for not going even further.

There are many doing all they physically can to protect us; but there is a way to go yet.

So often the lowest ebb is before the turn of the tide. We wait in hope for the vaccines that will also be carried by it.

But for now we must take every measure necessary to manage our own horizons.

It pays to prepare and prevent, rather than repair and repent