It’s too late now, but why didn’t we close our borders?
THERE is a dawning fact that is brought home to us nightly now on our television screens. The virus, that dreadful thing, is in fact out of control. I say this not to cause alarm or vexation. I say this with sincerity and truthfulness. When Ireland exited out of a strict lockdown in December we had one of the lowest levels of Covid-19 in Europe. We were doing a good job and perhaps in some strange way, we felt like we had earned a decent Christmas. We had come through the worst and then with the news of several vaccines on the way there was a collective sigh of relief.
Nphet warned that an increase in socialising over the Christmas break could lead to much higher levels of the virus. The Taoiseach said that we would try and stay in the position of low case numbers and that the Government would not be slow to act. We were told that we could have Christmas in a meaningful way.
And so we opened up again, we travelled, we shopped, we visited people but within days it was becoming clear that something was going wrong. The infection rates were not staying in the lower figures and soon experts were warning that we limit our social contacts again. By the time Christmas day rolled around a new picture was emerging and it wasn’t good.
Even before the Government announcement of a new lockdown people were already isolating again, returning to the ramparts and the security of our own homes to beat the virus. For my wife and I and those we know, there was a sense that we were going back to the bunkers once again and the question was asked by many: What really had changed from March last year. What impact had we really made against this invisible enemy?
Sadly, the situation did not improve and in the week leading up to January 10 Ireland had the highest infection rate in the world. The research figures linked to Oxford University were stark.
Speaking earlier this week, Dr Tony Holohan said that there was an “unsustainable high level” of infection in the country. The hospitals are now under severe pressure and the situation was described as ‘carnage’ to this newspaper on Wednesday.
At the time of writing this column, there were 1,838 patients being treated in Irish hospitals for the virus and more than 170 in intensive care.
The numbers, and there have been so many in the last two weeks, read like statistics and yet they are not statistics they are mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. Each one a grave situation, each one a potential tragedy.
There are more than 2,450 families without a loved one due to Covid at this moment. Who knows how many more it will be by next week.
Added to this, our frontline healthcare workers are at the pin of their collar. Overworked, stressed and in some cases out of action with the virus itself, they are our modern heroes and without them, we would be lost.
I think of my own cousin who is a nurse in one of the busy hospitals in the country and how not only is she helping battle the virus, but is also helping take care of the sick who are in hospital for non-Covid related illnesses. I think of her and worry that she may contract the virus after only recently graduating from university.
So where did it all go so wrong? Where did the problems arise? Dr Mike Ryan of the World Health Organisation said the increase in cases was not due to the variant of the virus from the UK but “to increased social mixing”.
In thinking about this I was reminded of my old home of Australia this week, which has taken a very different approach to the virus. The country shut its borders very early on in the pandemic and banned nearly all inward travel. Citizens and permanent residents could return but many others were simply barred. Flights to Australia were reduced and in order to ensure safety, those arriving were quarantined properly. A mandatory hotel quarantine was brought in. For two weeks passengers were holed up in a hotel room while they were observed and tested for the virus and charged $3,000 dollars per person. A price tag that has kept many away.
So strict were Australia’s rules that interstate travel was banned between many states for some time, in particular in the state of Victoria, which was the epicentre of the Australian outbreak of the virus.
It’s a harsh system but the figures don’t lie. There have been 909 deaths out of a population of nearly 25 million. It is a success story and friends and family in Australia are living near-normal lives as a result of tough rules imposed early.
Perhaps it’s a fruitless exercise now but maybe, just maybe, we should have thought about a similar exercise in closing our borders. Yes, we are in Europe and it is a trickier proposition, but international travel has been available both inward and outward throughout this time and we do not have an enforced mandatory quarantine stay in a hotel or other such space like Australia.
If people wanted to come here they would need to do the time, as it were, in a hotel and we would know for sure that quarantine was properly being policed. It was only this week that new measures were brought in that passengers arriving into Ireland must provide a negative test.
The case numbers are starting to go down from the dizzying heights of a few days ago but perhaps in this, the third battle against the virus, we need to get serious about all our measures.
‘If people want to come here they need to do their quarantine time in a hotel’