I’m more afraid of what lockdown is doing than of Covid
LAST week Minister for Education Joe McHugh said it’s uncertain if all our children can return to school even by September — despite the vast majority of kids in the rest of Europe being back in school for five months at that stage.
And it’s official – I’m now more afraid of what lockdown is doing to us than I am of
Covid-19.
This is because of the difficulty with reopening schools in light of the two-metre social distancing rule. Now the WHO says that at least one-metre social distancing is what’s required to reduce spread of Covid-19.
Two metres does decrease it by more — but the WHO recognises that one metre may not be possible in many situations — hence its recommendations.
Nphet, however, doesn’t agree. So despite our kids’ education being compromised and HSE chief Paul Reid stating one metre would allow our health service greater ability to treat patients. The two-metre rule has stayed in place.
The fact is however — no one can explain how two-metre social distancing is actually workable in our hospitals, schools, creches, public transport, hospitality sector or many other areas going forward.
Nphet just issues the dictats. We are expected to come up with the solutions. But what if no solutions exist?
We were asked on March 12 to ‘flatten the curve’ and stop our ICUs being overrun — as we’d seen in Italy and Spain. And we all agreed. And the hard work by people throughout the country, at great personal cost to them — losing jobs and staying away from loved ones — doubtless saved many.
We were never asked to ‘give up our whole way of life’ going forward. A far different proposition — but it’s what we’re being asked to do now.
We are being asked to abandon our access to non-Covid related healthcare, to our livelihoods, our children’s education. To give up seeing our family and friends even in our hour of need.
To forego our ability to move freely about our own country. And in the wake of childcare collapsing — our ability for two parents to work outside the home — likely setting back women’s equality here by decades.
A hierarchy of workers is emerging. One group, frontline workers — not all well-paid doctors, many are low-paid retail staff — are expected to go to work in all circumstances, even while the virus was widely circulating. And another group who appear to be able to refuse to go to work in any circumstances — bar being given some kind of guarantee they won’t ever get sick — even when that virus has stopped circulating in our communities.
Since when was our children’s education not essential? I know no public health doctors who think our schools being closed for six months is in children’s best interest — yet here we are. Micheal Martin rightly pointed out that many of the rules like which shops are open and the 5km travel restriction are completely arbitrary and non-science based.
Ten mourners at a funeral — irrespective of the size of the church — is particularly cruel and utterly senseless.
Michael O’Leary pointed out that our travel restrictions are ineffective and mistimed. We didn’t have them when we needed them — and now it looks like we’ll be able to fly to Spain for our holliers before we can visit our family in Cork.
We’re taking a baseball bat to life as we’ve known it. And the reality is those who are advising us to do this are largely unaffected by what’s being asked of the general public.
Everyone who is advising government is an academic or a well-paid medic — in a secure, pensionable job. Many of whom are about to get a pay rise during the deepest recession in a century.
They’re not among the hundreds of thousands of families who’ve permanently lost their livelihoods. They’re not struggling with young children, working from home, remote schooling and zero childcare. And they seem unmoved by the fallout their decisions are having on the rest of their fellow citizens.
Some 1,600 people have tragically lost their lives to Covid-19. But almost five million people are losing their whole way of life. And perhaps they’re okay with that. But no one is asking. Rather, we’re sleepwalking into a completely changed Ireland — without any great discussion.
So I’d like answers to the following before I agree that my children won’t have a proper education this autumn. Or before I agree to having no workable health care service, public transport, childcare or indeed any bars, restaurants, cafes, sports or a whole raft of other things we’ve taken for granted in our lives up until now.
Is there a model of what would happen if the medically vulnerable — those with underlying conditions and those who are older — continue to cocoon but we allow back out with no two-metre social distancing, (bar stopping super-spreading events like festivals and big concerts or matches) those who are younger and with no underlying health conditions? And if there’s no model — why is that?
CSO figures from last week show there’s been 81 deaths below the age of 65 here. And we’ve had 87 deaths in those with no underlying medical condition.
That’s a maximum of 168 deaths outside the cocooned groups. What we are currently doing is akin to shutting every road in the country because 141 people tragically lost their lives on our roads last year.
The truth is the vast, vast majority of people outside cocooned groups get Covid-19 and simply recover. The lives that are lost to this disease are mainly among identifiable groups — who are cocooning now.
Is there good reason for everyone to remain in lockdown while we blithely commit economic suicide?
Economic suicide — which means thousands of lives will be lost down the line anyway to poverty and non-covid health issues like cancer.
Before we agree to enter a social contract that changes the very fabric of our lives — we need to see the modelling on this. And before we agree to it, we need to discuss why masks are not mandatory here, which could facilitate one-metre social distancing being the norm. And why testing and contact tracing — the real key to shutting down Covid-19 — are still not up to speed three months into this pandemic here?
We’re getting to the stage where the cure may now be worse than the disease. Before we go any further with this giant social experiment, we need proper answers to hard questions.
Anything else is madness.