Too many anomalies for business to digest
ITwas never a st raigh forward roadmap for exiting the Covid-1 9 rest ricti ons but in recent days far too many anomalies have emerged leading to disillusionment and even anger in some cases.
There’s growing pressure on the government to reduce the two metre social distance guidance to one metre and I totally get where people and businesses are coming from on this.
The WHO says one metre is sufficient and many countries have adopted this too but here in Ireland we are adhering to two metres and there’s no change yet according to the Taoiseach at the week-end.
How can there be such a difference of opinion across health experts on the social distance guidelines?
A reduction to one metre could allow restaurants and cafés to safely re-open, a must in the coming weeks as the Government threatens to cut the Covid-19 payment of €350 a week, which by the way, was a higher wage for some 40% of those who availed of it than previoiusly which shows how poorly paid many people are in this country.
The government is also coming under pressure to change the re-opening of some sectors including those engaged in the hairdressing industry.
If hairdressers and barbers can demonstrate it can carry on their business while adhering to restrictions then there should be no reason why they cannot be allowed re-open next month.
A one metre distance with staff and customers wearing face masks and other PPE if necessary should be sufficient.
Small boutiques I feel sorry for. Owners could easily control the numbers allowed in at a time and it’s no different than supermarket shopping and indeed, is probably much safer.
Big stores like Dunnes could carry on selling clothes which was totally unfair. Some areas should not have closed down at all in my opinion and they are doing roughly now what they were doing when this crisis began last March.
I’m referring to road projects. They should not have shut down and the work was well capable of being performed safely all along. Car dealerships, most of whom have huge showrooms, could easily meet social distance guidelines and could have traded all along including their garages.
Taxis can operate yet it’s deemed not safe enough for driving tests to operate. Golf and tennis has returned with horse racing soon but not other sports.
Gardaí travel together in cars while working for hours on end, up to ten and 12 hour shifts yet returning businesses have to implement some serious return to work measures to keep employees apart.
I do feel it’s time for the Cabinet to start questioning more how we are handling our return to work. Indeed, where is the plan for the return to school?