NPHET running our Covid response – not Coalition

IT MAKES me wonder about the logic and interpretation of facts by the Government (and opposition) when NPHET make presentations.

I don’t doubt the genuine concern in all parties, political and medical, about the Covid issues. Covid is real. But there are so many contradictions, no wonder we, the ordinary citizens, are confused, and even angry.

The pubs and restaurants have been closed since Christmas Eve last – six months. Non-essential shops were closed for half of that time. (Even the decision on what was ‘essential’ was confused.)

We are entering a new dawn where the vaccines are hitting the ‘herd immunity’ levels flaunted in January as the way forward. Yet, we are being thrown back to the alarmist stage by certain elements who appear to be against the continued opening of our economy and our society.

What have they against the restaurants opening as planned? None of the sad deaths or Covid cases since the end of February can be attributed to them because they were closed. What have they against religious ceremonies? None of these deaths and cases can be attributed to them either because they were closed.

They are allowing extensions to attendances to outdoor events, outdoor eating and drinking, hotel restaurants and bars being open. They are approving the travel passport (albeit a good bit behind the rest of the EU).

Yet once-off events like First Communions and Confirmations are deemed dangerous when the participants are under the age where they are considered immune and are deemed not to need vaccination. It does not make sense.

They have allowed our aviation industry to virtually collapse while all other EU states have worked to save theirs. They have virtually killed off our tourist industry while other EU states are assisting the reopening of theirs.

For the sake of our country, please be sensible and brave. We need some positive direction and decisions. We need leadership from the State. What we seem to have is a wimpish fear of NPHET, whose lifespan is getting shorter by the day. Every alarm raised extends their tenure of office.

John Colgan, by email.

No scaremongering!

PUBS and restaurants have spent thousands in the past year and a half on making their premises safer. Yet as each planned reopening draws nearer, they are only to be kicked in the teeth every time.

Indoor dining up in the North has been allowed since May 24, meaning anyone can cross the border for a meal or a pint.

There is also an international football tournament taking place across Europe with hordes of fans inside stadia. Ireland is the only one of these host nations that pulled out of the competition and is currently the only country where indoor dining is still not allowed.

Surely it is high time that we had some normality in our lives instead of outrageous scaremongering by telling people we could be looking at 2,000 deaths in the next three months when the rest of Europe is not terrifying people like that.

Noel Harrington, Kinsale, Co. Cork.

RTÉ’s budget woes

I NOTE with interest that RTÉ will now be cutting €1.5m from its news and current affairs budget as part of an effort to reduce costs at the broadcaster by €60m over three years.

I would suggest that RTÉ might consider reducing show quantity and increasing quality.

High-quality programmes can then be licensed to foreign networks and streaming services for a premium.

There’s no point in RTÉ striving to be the BBC on its budget. John O’Brien, Co. Kilkenny.

Trump immunity

DESPITE the ‘no punches pulled’ NPHET advice on indoor dining and drinking hogging most of the headlines during the week, I noted Donald Trump reappearing in various media dispatches.

I just wasn’t ready for the highprofile coverage of Trump’s recent rally in Ohio in ‘world news’ columns in some leading newspapers, bedecked with photographs uncomfortably reminiscent of a recent delirium in world affairs.

As a population midway through Covid vaccination, wondering when the pubs will finally open, trying to assess the possibilities of a sun holiday etc., may I ask that the media exercise NPHET-like caution in reexposing us to Mr Trump, to whom I, and many others I suggest, are still endeavouring to build an immunity.

Michael Gannon,

Co. Kilkenny.