We can’t start dancing on thin ice now

We must temper our anger and ignore the ‘Cool Kids’ who think they have Covid sussed, writes Gene Kerrigan

THINGS are on edge, right now. And there’s trouble ahead: two separate but related kinds of trouble. On the positive side, the infection figures tell us we’ve done amazingly well over the past few weeks, bringing down Covid levels.

The infections had got to absurd heights — thousands of cases a day — because the Government decided we deserved a little more social mixing at Christmas and it wouldn’t do any harm to “open up the hospitality industry”. As a result, the virus had a free fire zone, people died from Covid at an unprecedented rate, and some families will forever associate Christmas with the death of a loved one.

My hackles usually rise when people tell us not to “play the blame game”, as it means someone is dodging accountability.

But, this Covid thing is different.

None of us — including ministers, including Nphet — has ever faced this kind of problem. It demands a stream of difficult decisions, many with potentially deadly consequences.

While scientists have done astonishing work over the past year there’s still far too much we don’t know about the coronavirus. It’s a mindless thing that will try every possible twist to survive by infecting us. We don’t know how it might mutate next.

And humans make mistakes. The Government reckoned that if the people didn’t get some kind of normal Christmas relief, it might make some become reckless. The politicians didn’t count on the new variant being so infectious — and, yes, they should have factored in that possibility but they made the wrong choices.

Nphet was more cautious, and was treated as just another lobbyist with a point of view.

If beating that drum endlessly did any of us any good, then right now my fingers would be very sore. But unleashing anger does nothing more than make us feel a little better for a short while.

What’s more important is that we don’t keep making the same mistakes — we’ll have enough trouble surviving all the new ones we’re likely to make.

The hospitals struggled to cope for a while as cases surged. But, unless we do something silly and infections rise sharply again, our exhausted health service will probably hold the line.

More positive news — death levels are falling dramatically in the US and in the UK as the vaccines do their work. Our Government will eventually get the vaccine process sorted out.

And they’re finally moving, reluctantly and half-heartedly, to impose quarantines on visitors and stop virus variants coming in on airplanes.

On the negative side, though, infection rates remain higher than they ought to be.

We are — in short — moving forward, but we’re still taking baby steps on thin ice.

And now the bad news. I know it sounds ridiculous but here in Ireland there are now two dangerous forces pushing us to do the kind of silly things we all know are reckless.

This is an inevitable consequence of months of tension, hope and fear as we went into and out of lockdown.

We can categorise those two dangerous forces as a) the Angry People, and b) the Cool Kids of Covid.

Over the past week, there’s been a surge of people telling us they’re effin’ sick of it, they’re opening their pubs and their restaurants and their shops, and the Government can just eff right off.

Now, these are not the professional anti-lockdown activists who loudly refuse to wear masks and tell lies about vaccines.

These aren’t the ones who wave their tricolours at us to show us how rebellious they are, and throw in a touch of racism and a wee salting of homophobia just for the craic.

No, these aren’t spacers — these are people who worked night and day for years to build a business and now watch it all thrashed within a few months.

They’re desperate people who say this just isn’t fair — and they’re right: viruses don’t do fairness. They just infect and multiply wherever people gather.

And those who are infected pass it on at a high rate, and within days there’s a surge and the hospitals fill up.

A Killarney restaurant owner, Paul Treyvaud, was the first angry voice I heard, quickly followed by others. He’ll open in summer, Paul announced.

“That gives them four months to sort out everything. I’ve done everything I’ve been told to do... The problem is no longer us. It’s an incompetent Government.”

Yes, Paul, the Government’s incompetent. No, Paul, the Government’s not the problem; the virus is.

As it happens, I had a meal in Killarney, in Paul’s restaurant, just before we all had to hunker down. Enjoyed it. Was looking forward to going back.

But, Paul, look at what you’re doing. You’ve given the Government an ultimatum with a deadline, demanding they “sort everything out” under threat that you’ll take actions the Government believes can result in sickness and death.

Not a good look, Paul. We’re in a pretty tough place right now, and precisely what we don’t need are new potential sources of infection.

I know you’ll take precautions if you open — which is what the restaurant owners said and no doubt did — when they opened for Christmas.

Yes, the Fianna Fáil/ Fine Gael cartel is clueless, we knew that when we saw how they handled housing and health long before coronavirus. But new sources of infection? Come on, how does that help?

One major fear among health experts is that when the most vulnerable are vaccinated, there’ll be a sigh of relief and we all party.

The difficult truth is we can relax and sort out a workable form of normality only when all adults have been vaccinated.

If we do it before then — for instance, this summer — we risk another surge, even greater, with similar consequences.

With this difference: the old will be vaccinated by then.

Those filling ICU, and dying when the hospitals fail, will be much younger.

As for the second needless danger... Whatever the crisis, there’s usually a Cool Kid to be found.

They’ve thought about the problem, with no knowledge or aid other than their own instinct and native intelligence, and they’ve murmured to themselves: “I think I’ve got this figured.”

These days, a lot of the Cool Kids seem to work for the Irish Times.

Their last big idea was Yeah, Cool, Let’s Open Up For Christmas!

Their latest big idea seems to be that once the most vulnerable are vaccinated — Hey, Cool, Baby, We’re Back!

On Friday they produced a poll that might herald the start of a campaign.

Seek it out — look at the loaded questions. This Carry On Covid effort is deeply worrying.

A lockdown is an emergency tool — not a long-term strategy. But this Government seems unable to think long term.

The public, reasonably enough, can take only so much uncertainty and there are Angry People about.

There are Covid landmines all around that any of us might blunder onto.

And a major newspaper is indulging the Cool Kids, deep thinkers who’ve got this figured.

We are holding the line, we’ve made progress; there are dangers, leadership is weak; even the experts have limited knowledge.

We need cool heads, not anger.

Cool heads, not Cool Kids with a “hey, let’s see what happens if ” urge.

The horrors this pandemic may be remembered for might not yet have even begun.

Baby steps, on thin ice.

‘One major fear among health experts is that when the most vulnerable are vaccinated, there’ll be a sigh of relief and we all party’