Zero-Covid campaign is ‘what Irish public want’
A NEW campaign aimed at getting Ireland to adopt a stringent Zero-Covid strategy to eliminate the virus from the country will be launched tomorrow.
‘We can be Zero’ is a website and hashtag devised by human rights lawyer and activist Simone George.
The campaign is on behalf of the Independent Scientific Advocacy Group (ISAG), which is made up of many of Ireland’s leading public health experts.
They say a Zero-Covid strategy involving all people coming into the state having to quarantine for two weeks in a supervised setting is the only way to avoid repeat lockdowns.
It would mean Ireland adopting similar restrictions to those in place in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, which have successfully got on top of their Covid outbreaks.
However, both the Government and NPHET say that is not feasible.
Ms George said people would be out ‘marching on the streets for a Zero-Covid strategy if they could.
‘But they can’t now, obviously, so this website and platform will give them a platform to get on to their TDs and tell them this is what they want,’ she said.
Ms George, who is also a commercial litigator, lost her mother to cancer last March. She died without any family present at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin.
‘We weren’t able to see her for the last two weeks of her life. We were just on FaceTime with her. I haven’t been able to hug my dad for a year,’ she said.
‘People are really struggling. People are filled with grief.’
But Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said: ‘We simply couldn’t realistically seal the borders of this country and stop people moving in and out.’
However, public health expert Dr Gabriel Scally said he and his colleagues had been ‘too polite’ in lobbying for Zero-Covid, and it was time to get tough.
He said: ‘People have a phenomenal power if they choose to use it. And we need an all-Ireland movement to achieve this.’
‘Website will give them a platform’