Cocooning could be loosened and golf allowed
SENIOR Government sources have revealed to the Irish Mail on Sunday the calculations for allowing the country to emerge from lockdown. According to a senior source in the Department of Health: ‘If the metrics work on May 5 and you’d see the serious suppression of the virus, you would then be looking to see how you could ease some of the restrictions. But we would be misleading people if we were to say we’re expecting life to go back to normal.’
BACK TO SCHOOL
‘A priority for a lot of parents, and maybe a health and wellbeing priority as well, would be to see if you could open schools a little bit,’ said a senior source at the Department of Health.
‘Even if it was only a day or two a week, where kids could go in, collect their homework, get out of the house for a few hours, give their parents a break, that would be a major one.’
EASE COCOONING
There is growing concern in Government over mental health issues. They are extremely cognisant of the difficulties being endured by older people who are ‘cocooning’.
‘You’d look and see if it is possible if everything works out could you let older people get out of their home and exercise at certain parts of the day,’ said the source in the Department of Health.
‘So at the moment it looks like we’ll have to protect older people for quite a period of time, but we’ll be looking at would you allow them out in certain hours of the day, at a certain distance and in certain places.
‘Could you do something for their physical wellbeing which feeds into their mental health,’ said the source.
RETAIL
Next to be considered by the Government will be the retail industry.
‘Could you allow a garden centre open so people could at least potter around their own garden, and again with very strict social distancing?’ the department source said.
‘You allow some retail open as long as they would only have a certain amount of people in the shop, with strict social distancing and where they are fixed on a matrix of necessity.’
PUBS STAY SHUT
The source told the MoS that pubs are unlikely to open in the near future.
‘Pubs are the least likely because pubs are, as the vintners said themselves… it is impossible to social distance in them.
‘In Britain they are going to look at suspension of rules on on-street drinking and beer gardens but the nature of our pubs is they are clustered in small towns and cities and it would be difficult to maintain social distancing – the nature of the activity makes it difficult.
‘I think the pubs are unlikely to be opening in May and will stay closed perhaps longer.’
BACK TO WORK
Many people will continue to work from home. The ability of people to work from home will be crucial to businesses.
The source said: ‘If we got to a point where it would safe to ease some of the restrictions, can your
business or activity enable social distancing? I mean, what we definitely know is that social distancing is going to be with us for a long period of time.’
CONSTRUCTION
If someone is building a rural house up a laneway in rural Connemara, they’re not on top of anyone. But 500 or 600 lads on a construction site would be a different kettle of fish.
‘Slowly, slowly, steady,’ according to a Government source.
The Government said that this will be a trial-and-error approach. Lifting restrictions might even involve trying something for a week, and it didn’t work, tweak it or abandon it.
SPORT
There is bad news for some sports fans and good news for others.
‘The GAA championships, you’re looking at big problems.
‘It’s too early to be definitive, but the idea that 40,000, 50,000 or even 80,000 people would be able to sit in a stadium together is looking very remote.
‘The idea of a local hurling team or soccer team couldn’t come together for training or friendlies or even some competitive game will be looked at. The idea is stop mass gathering and stop people coming into close contact. To stop the virus jumping from person to person.’
However, golfers may see a return in May.
‘Golf I can imagine coming back. It is one of the first. It is safest of all, the golf clubhouse is one thing, the going out in a fourball and keeping a distance is safe.’