Takeaway Pint

I am tired and fatigued at being constantly told by pundits that I am tired of lockdown and fatigued by restrictions. Actually, like everyone else, I can’t say I’m exactly enjoying lockdown. However, like most others, I see the necessity of lockdown restrictions and am willing to put up with them.

What I do find very hard to put up with is the Tragic Chorus from Ibec, The Vintners Association, and The Defenders of The Itish Way, I mean various rural TDs, telling me ‘I’m not up to it.’ Actually, though I’m 75 and live on my own, I think I am. On the other hand, I can well understand the serious financial worries of people with family businesses and employees on low incomes.

That said, COVID, as one immunologist put it, ‘goes about looking for loopholes’ and, if we are foolish enough to provide the ‘loopholes’, then we could see hospitals unable to cope and more deaths in nursing homes. So, yes we do need lockdowns and restrictions, at least until a vaccine arrives. However, what we don’t need is lockdowns and restrictions that simply don’t work.

I know of two international air flights where they manifestly didn’t work, and we all have heard of the merry street parties, fuelled by the ‘Takeaway Pint,’ where social distancing is simply ignored. What is disturbing about the ‘Takeaway Pint’ party, of course, is that the government has decided not to deal with the problem it clearly is.

Here, government really does need to be the adult in the room and needs to legislate if legislation is necessary and needs to provide increased police resources if increased police resources are necessary. ‘Takeaway Pint’ crowds need to discover that soon after they arrive at the party so too do the Gardai, the latter in sufficient numbers. Yes, yes, it is all very difficult and troublesome. As it was for the Aussie authorities. The difference is the Aussies did become ‘the adults in the room.’ The state of Victoria now has had zero COVID infections for something like a fortnight. Recently, Adelaide had one serious cluster whose source authorities were able to locate with lightning speed.

Is there any possibility that someone would whisper in the collective ear of the Oireachtas ‘Test, Test, Test’ at our airports and ‘Enforce, Enforce, Enforce’ on our streets.

The Indy sometimes gets a wrongly routed letter; we run this one, intended for “The Irish Independent,” as it expresses a predicament that appears to be global.