Do we want to live in a world without pubs?
AWEEK is a long time in pandemics. At the start of last week, the pubs not being allowed to open was all we were talking about. However, by Friday, the regional lockdown of Kildare, Laois and Offaly had taken over as the big news. The exiting of our national lockdown is clearly far harder to navigate than the relative ease of just shutting up everywhere that we saw at the beginning of this crisis.
Closing everything was a blunt but effective instrument that kept us all apart and slowed down the spread. But it was unsustainable. And without our society opening again to some extent, our way of life was threatened — just as the virus threatens our actual lives.
In the face of localised clusters, regional lockdowns are a good idea. Especially if the alternatives are national lockdowns — or no lockdown at all. And it’s likely we will see more of them as further outbreaks occur — provided our track and trace system is able to accurately map the spread, and provided Nphet doesn’t panic and attempt to revert to the plan A of locking the whole country.
And, yes, they are hard to police. But behaviourally about 85pc of us are rule followers — so that is still probably enough to slow the virus.
Nphet has advised that nationally we’ll remain in phase three for another three weeks rather than progressing to phase four. But the question must then be asked — what do they expect to change on August 31? Certainly, no silver bullet will have emerged. No vaccine. No proven anti-viral treatment. So, the only difference might be the number of new cases or a clear indication of the direction in which the cases are going.
But supposing they remain at the levels they are now? Say 50-100 per day. What then? Do we continue to live without pubs, for example, for another three weeks? Or perhaps another three months after that? Or possibly another three years — which could be the timescale for the rollout of a safe and effective vaccine? Or in that case — permanently?
The decision to remain closed is an easy, sweeping one for Nphet at least — if not for the publicans. An attempt to reopen our economy and our society safely is ultimately more difficult — but it remains the better option.
Closing everything threw out babies with bathwater. Hairdressers were closed for months, only reopening on June 29. They have reopened with so many safety procedures now that they now resemble going for minor surgery. I feel completely safe as they check my temperature, stick me in a disposable gown and sanitise repeatedly while the stylist and I ruefully look at my hair in our reciprocal masks. I seriously doubt hairdressers are sources of transmission. They could have remained open with these precautions all along.
Playgrounds were closed unnecessarily.
Much of retail was, too.
And I fully respect the fact that pubs are different to other commercial entities. Drinking alcohol lowers your inhibitions and skews your judgment.
But that does not mean pubs shouldn’t necessarily open. That means pubs should only open with certain strict guidelines.
For example, it wouldn’t have been beyond the wit of man to base the number of customers in each pub on the square footage of the premises. You could limit the amount of drinks or units of alcohol sold to each person. Social distancing could be managed with spaced out stools or tables. Perspex could be used at the bar or between sections. Outdoor spaces could be used to good effect. And any pubs found to be flouting the guideline could have their licence revoked for six months. All of that is possible, but none of it was done.
And all pubs are not the same. The urban, super pub is a far cry from the small local which provides a community with a place where people — often isolated, older folk — can come to get a bit of company. We are allowed to have 50 indoors at an organised event — but many pubs have far fewer customers than that on a given night. Keeping them all closed is easy — finding ways to open them safely is harder but ultimately better.
I don’t subscribe to the zero-Covid plan many medics are supporting here. Mainly because I don’t believe it’s possible. I think we could get to zero — with massive human effort and cost — and the virus will still re-emerge and it will have all been for naught.
No, I believe we’re going to have to live alongside this pandemic for the foreseeable future. Very possibly years.
Masks need to be mandatory everywhere that people mix indoors. Schools, shops, offices — you name it. Test and trace needs to have a bottomless pit of funding — whatever is required to chase down every outbreak. Localised lockdowns need to be imposed for short periods — where major outbreaks occur. And we all need to keep our distance and our hygiene up — as best we can.
Other than that, we need to find ways to open up everywhere as safely as possible. Parts of society staying permanently closed may be slightly safer but ultimately it’s also ferociously expensive and utterly miserable. And as the pandemic drags on, the human cost and the impact of that expense and misery on our mental health becomes more apparent. Do we really want to live in a post-Covid world where pubs are a thing of the past? This needs to be discussed.
Lastly, the cases are currently climbing — but the death rate remains thankfully very low. This is because the cases are largely in young people. Older people are more vulnerable and appear to be protecting themselves better.
Finding a way of assessing the level of cellular immunity — as opposed to antibody-led immunity might give us an accurate idea of how long immunity might last post-infection or post-vaccination. That is the next challenge for science.
But what Government needs to do now is find ways to reopen our whole society — in the safest possible way — using tools like masks, outdoor spaces and ventilation to assist them.
Nphet falling back repeatedly on a blunt strategy of keeping ’em closed is just no way to live.