Groundhog Day
One year into the Covid-19 pandemic and Ireland is back where it started – in commercial lockdown with government still set on prioritising hospitals over enterprise, writes Nick Mulcahy
One year into the coronavirus pandemic and Ireland is back where it started. Ongoing lockdown is costing the country €300m a week and the Medical Mullahs hold sway
As the coronavirus pandemic enters year two, one fact is beyond dispute - Covid-19 is very dangerous for elderly people aged over 80, especially if they have comorbidities. If they become infected, there is a one in five chance that Covid will be a contributory cause of death. On that basis, limiting Covid deaths to 1.4% of this population cohort over the past year is a creditable achievement for policy makers and politicians.
The Covid risk isn’t as large for the 65-79 age group, though it’s still meaningful. According to official data, 92.4% of deaths attributed to Covid in the past year have been people aged 65 or over. These are clearly the people most at risk from Covid, and when official messaging says ‘stay at home, save lives’, these are the people the officials have in mind.
One year of data since the outbreak of the pandemic shows that Covid is much less of a threat to younger cohorts who are still working or in education. Across the 4,260,000 people aged under 65, there have been 285 deaths attributed to Covid in the past year, according to Central Statistics Office data to the end of February 2021. There have been no Covid deaths across 1,630,000 young people aged under 25 whose education routine has been shredded.
Lockdowns and restrictions on liberty, work, travel, socialising, entertainment, trading and freedom of movement weigh heaviest on the active, non-retired population for whom Covid is not a mortal threat. The restrictions protect the lives of the elderly, and without them there would be more elderly deaths.
The over-65s make up one-in-seven of the population and all over the world lockdowns and restrictions have been the universal policy response to protect them from Covid. That’s not just because of compassion for the elderly, but also because while Covid won’t kill most younger people it can certainly land them in hospital.
In the period from 13 November 2020 to 19 February 2021, the CSO counted 213,900 confirmed Covid cases and 7,380 Covid hospitalisations. The very low-mortality risk under-65s made up c.45% of Covid hospital admissions in this 15-week period. Those 3,300 hospital bed occupants would not have been there except for the pandemic, and these younger Covid patients, the vast majority of whom recover, deny hospital space to other people with non-Covid ailments.
It’s not just a hospital capacity issue. Every Covid patient, no matter how young, is a virus vector, necessitating cumbersome PPE precautions by hospital staff. Even with these PPE protections, in the six months before they were vaccinated this year, health workers have accounted for one in six of all reported Covid infections. And when health staff test positive, they are sidelined for isolation, making the job of running hospitals that much more difficult.
Seen through this lens, the Department of Health’s enthusiasm for longer and more severe restrictions is not surprising. Health officials want to be rid of the cursed Covid so they can return to hospital life as it used to be. Cramming down Covid will also extend the lives of some very elderly people, so there’s a moral rationale too.
Politicians have increasingly bought into the more stringent lockdown and restrictions mentality. Incrementally, guidance on movement, socialising and travel has been replaced with legal penalties. Despite all the over-85s cohort being on track to be vaccinated by St Patrick’s Day – the anniversary of the first lockdown – Taoiseach Micheál Martin and his Tánaiste Leo Varadkar have signalled that it will be June or July before permitting indoor dining is on their policy menu.
They have also signalled that there will be no let-up in restrictions on gatherings such as weddings and live events until possibly the autumn. As for overseas travel, forget it. Just like last year, Covid case numbers will tumble over the summer as people escape the closed confines of their homes. And just like last year, Covid cases will rise again in the autumn. Unless, perhaps, the restrictions never go away, as health officials and their political allies pursue the goal of Zero Covid.
The Taoiseach and his deputy have not stated Zero Covid is their objective, though their actions suggest that is their direction of travel. In a country where the housing crisis was the main political issue in the 2020 general election, the decision to close down construction activity for months and months was not taken lightly. The Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael leaders are both former health ministers, and Varadkar is a qualified doctor, so they naturally sympathise with the healthcare perspective. Now it seems that the two men have been completely won over by the Health Mullahs.
Their perspective might be different if they didn’t have limitless funds to throw at the problem. Through January, 480,000 people were in receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment income support, 145,000 more people than in December. The PUP recipients are in addition to the 190,000 people in receipt of regular Jobseekers payment. In the business arena, there are currently c.48,000 employers availing of the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme, which is availed of by enterprises whose turnover this year has reduced by at least 30% from the 2019 outcome.
The 480,000 people claiming PUP are people who were employed in the most put-upon lockdown sectors, such as tourism, travel, hospitality, entertainment, construction, food and beverage, personal services and retail. They were in and out of work through 2020 too, yet tax on their income was hardly missed. Income Tax revenue in 2020 was €22.7bn, a tiny 1.0% decline on the previous year. Some recipients are better off on PUP than they were in employment, which helps explain why social cohesions has largely endured through a year of the pandemic.
What’s the cost of all this state support? In the five months from October 2020 to February 2021, government spending was €5,000m higher that a year earlier, and tax receipts were €1,760m lower. That works out at an average difference per week of €310m over the period. That is the rolling, ongoing weekly cost of Covid restrictions, all of which is being added to the national debt.
Payments and supports salve the conscience of the politicians who have prohibited employers and individuals from trading. It seems that official cost/benefit analysis is only informed by one way of thinking – whatever the Department of Health and its organ NPHET decide.
But what happens when the most at-risk elderly and health workers are all vaccinated by the end of April? If the risk of death from Covid becomes negligible, the only remaining rationale for restrictions would be to minimise the number of Covid patients entering hospital for treatment. That will bring the tail wagging the dog into even sharper focus, the dog being the hundreds of thousands of people on PUP who are not on the state payroll.
With PUP and business supports extended to the end of June, putupon enterprises can look forward to another few months of financial limbo, so long as they can keep the landlord from the door. After that, unless supports are extended into the autumn a dark reality will crystallise for thousands of business owners and the self-employed, particularly in retail, hospitality and tourism sectors of the economy.
The No Fáilte message has gone out loud and clear to overseas visitors for the rest of 2021, and who knows where Covid paranoia will take NPHET’s quarantine strictures into 2022.