The lockdown held valuable lessons but are we already forgetting them?

SINCE the lockdown began to lift it has been tempting to a draw parallels between our country’s emergence from the spectre of COVID-19 and the ousting of some terrible regime. The last few weeks have, indeed, felt like a type of liberation from tyranny as the country emerged, blinking, into the summer sunshine with the hope that the worst of the crisis may, finally, be over and life can go on again.

The initial phases of Ireland’s re-opening felt quite slow and considered with most people, understandably, very cautious about taking any chances with the virus and their safety.

What, after all, would have been the point of our isolation if we all dove headfirst into a sea of infected people as soon as a few shops opened?

Rational thought prevailed and with it the sense of community that has bound us all together during our great national trauma.

We have endured so much and our society has matured in ways we could barely have imagined just a few months ago. Why on earth would we risk all that?

Well last week we got our answer and it’s cheap clothes. In cities and towns across the length and breadth of the country last Friday thousands of people queued for hours – many of them wilfully ignoring all social distancing rules and advice – to be among the first to pile through the doors of a discount fashion retailer.

The shops will no doubt have been expecting extremely large crowds and they did everything they could to accommodate the queues but, at times, the crowds just seemed to much for any business to handle.

Staff did their all to keep the queues orderly and to enforce social distancing rules but, to be fair to them, there was only so much they could do in the face of the enormous crowds that had filled the streets.

The situation wasn’t helped by the huge number of shoppers – quite a few of them older people who should certainly know better – who were happy to squash up against each other like sardines as they scrabbled to get towards the front of the line.

With an avaricious eye, they seemed to say ‘to hell with the dead, there’s cheap knickers to buy’.

As was the case with people panic buying at the start of the lockdown, it seems certain that the situation will normalise and that, hopefully, the frenzied scenes witnessed last week won’t continue for too long.

The novelty factor will surely wear off and the shops can get back to normal. Until then, one can only feel a pang of sympathy for the staff who must try and keep order amid the disgusting orgy of greed, cotton and nylon.

We learned a lot about ourselves during the lockdown, from the value of family and community to the importance of enjoying the simple things in life.

Last week’s lesson was that, for some people, greed still conquers all.

We haven’t changed as much as we might think.