It’s a bitter pill to swallow but pub decision was the right call to make

IN the last week Ireland received a wake up call to the ever present danger of the Coronavirus and, while unwelcome, it was surely a reality check that the country needed. After three miserable months of lock-down the gradual lifting of restrictions has been a blessed relief and a sense that normality was returning created a renewed sense of optimism all over the country.

Day to day life still felt very strange but things were gradually getting better.

Perhaps though we all took things a little to far. In our understandable joy at being released from lock-down and freed to see our friends and loved ones did we get ahead of ourselves? The events of the last week certainly suggest that we did. Last Wednesday were learned that most pubs would stay closed; that masks would be mandatory; that visits to houses would again be curtailed and that crowd sizes at events would remain severely limited.

Having a pint, going to a match or the cinema and planning a wedding or a landmark birthday party were again off the menu.

The news – while it had been widely expected in the wake of a sharp jump in Covid cases the previous day – was greeted with enormous disappointment and a degree of anger. But should anyone have been surprised.

Coronavirus cases and deaths continue to surge across the world. In Ireland while the number of deaths has fallen – though one is still too many – the number of cases has been steadily climbing for the last few weeks.

Though most people have been health conscious, responsible and have followed the Government guidelines it is impossible to deny that a sense of complacency was beginning to set in all over the country.

There seemed to be a growing notion – a wholly misguided one – that the worst of the crisis was over, that we had beaten the virus and that we could move on from the emergency.

Rather than heeding the lessons of Australia or New Zealand, where the virus was seemingly contained only to return, many of us were starting to behave as though a ‘second wave’ was only a remote possibility.

Foreign tourists are a concern – although there are far fewer in the country than anecdotal evidence suggests – but the real problem is down to us.

House parties have been identified as a major problem and this simply has to be addressed if we are to move to the next phase of opening the country next month.

Keeping the pubs shut will achieve absolutely nothing if house parties and large gatherings are allowed go ahead all over the country for the next three weeks.

Guidelines and recommendations are not enough. This has to be enforced. These parties must be shut down and anyone planning one must know they face severe punishment and fines.

This is not a time for half measures. If we are serious about beating COVID we can’t afford any more slip ups.