Time for Facebook police to take a holiday!

DAMNED if you do and damned if you don’ t. That seems to be the way things are operating at the moment in Ireland as people try to grapple with a resurgence of a kind of the dreaded Covid-19 virus.

We’re basically told not to go on any foreign travel despite there being a green list issued by the Government which in any event seems to be getting smaller every week but now even the staycationers are coming under the watchful eye of the ‘Facebook Police.’

You cannot pull up in a camper van now it seems at many of our beautiful beaches but someone will take a snap and post it on Facebook claiming you are clogging up the roads along with other tourists, are not social distancing, and in a nutshell you should go home.

I even saw a post on Sunday where a woman was giving out that Forest Park in Boyle was so full of people she had to turn around and leave.

But she was there herself and yet didn’t seem to want anyone else enjoying the amenity.

I see lots of others posting pictures from beaches and full car parks but I really don’t see the problem if people are adhering to social distance guidelines, are washing their hands and are staying to themselves.

It’s August after all and people are normally on holiday this time of the year and they are surely entitled to go where they choose without fearing the Facebook Police at every turn they take.

My message to the Facebook Police is to take a break themselves and go on a wee holiday and spare us all the fake angst.

What does seem to be a bit of a problem at the moment though, is people returning from holiday abroad and not isolating.

There is much anecdotal information that holiday makers have been coming back to the county over the past couple of weeks and are continuing on with life as normal, returning to work and other leisure activities.

The 14 day isolation period is being ignored by many and these are the really selfish people not the ones who are packing everything into a camper van and doing their best with a staycation.

I even saw a post from a rural county Sligo hairdresser who said they just had to post a message on their own Facebook page as a warning they will refuse customers returning from abroad who hadn’t isolated.

The owner said that they had noticed so many people coming through its door that had just returned to Ireland or are on holiday here and hadn’t not isolated.

People need to start taking personal responsibility again as we try to reduce the number of cases in the country once more. Sligo currently has 153 cases with a rise of five or so in the past week.

It’s a reminder that this virus is not going away any time soon and we all need to continue with the basics and perhaps start limiting our shopping time, going into stores only for essentials and limiting our travel too, and mixing with others outside immediate families.

The reopening of schools will come sharply into focus in the coming couple of weeks and the last the country needs is high numbers of Covid-19 cases when this happens.

In my view, people have been great so far but there’ ll always be a very small minority who feel this doesn’t apply to me and ‘I can do what I like’.

The high numbers of people wearing face masks around Sligo is heartening to see over the past few days and since Monday it is compulsory in our shops.

There should be no issue about this at all. For the few minutes you will be in a shop it is not going to cause any inconvenience.

Think of the staff who have to wear one every day.

A serious situation has arisen in the country’s meat plants and is the main cause of the re-introduced lockdown in the counties of Kildare, Offaly and Laois.

The outbreaks in four meat factories in Kildare and Offaly have led to around 300 confirmed cases so far.

It’s shocking that this has arisen especially when so much effort has been put in by so many companies to ensure a safe return to the workplace for its employees. Like the nursing home situation, someone has taken their eye off the ball with regard to the meat factories. They need to be shut down and workers isolated immediately.