There’s a room somewhere in Government Buildings and it is filled with people tearing their hair out.
And those people tearing their hair out are either a) Government ministers who can’t believe they haven’t been given better advice from all those special advisors they hired at great expense or
b) All those special advisors they hired at great expense who simply can’t believe that Government ministers aren’t listening to them and following their advice.
You get the feeling that advisors are there not so much to advise as to make their bosses feel good about themselves.
Covid-19 is a problem.
And the mental health issues resulting from it, are a problem. So too are the hospital waiting lists which have grown because of the virus.
Indeed, there are few areas of our lives, unaffected right now.
But there is one problem which is eminently solvable and that is communication.
And they’re not solving it.
An example.
Sports like Gaelic football, hurling, soccer and rugby, where 30 men or women get up close and personal are safe, at least they’re safe for the elite.
But tennis, played by two or four people, standing well apart from each other outdoors using balls which have been marked so nobody handles a ball previously handled by another player, is not safe.
Golf where men or women play more than socially distant from each other outdoors again, touching nothing previously touched by another person, is not safe. (I suppose it’s particularly unsafe if you have dinner for 82 afterwards.)
In many cases for the middle aged and, indeed, older people, golf and tennis are their only regular physical exercise and only source of social interaction.
We are told that school, where an adult is in a room with up to 30 children is safe.
And while a schoolroom might be in a relatively small room, a wedding in a large building with a high ceiling is safe for only 25.
Similarly a funeral.
Permitting three of four kids to play in a back garden is not safe.
You can click and collect food, but not books.
You can go into a shop and buy as much alcohol as you like, but not a book.
It goes on and on.
Now, unlike the eejits who oppose all restrictions and who are given far too much airtime on all our broadcasters, I am wholly in favour of Level 5 restrictions.
Even with those restrictions, I think we’re facing an uphill battle.
I think the sad fact is, that not enough is known about this virus. It is weighed down with what that otherwise dreadful specimen, US politician Dick Cheney called “unknown unknowns.” In other words, we don’t even know what we don’t know about it.
And yet there are those who think we should just carry on.
This week in Britain, a man who had been applauded by hospital staff as he left the intensive care unit a couple of months ago, having spent 60 days there, died. He was just 47.
Younger people are not immune.
And added to those who have sincere doubts about the course the government and, indeed, most European governments, are following, are the extremists, the lunatics who either think Covid is an invention, part of some worldwide conspiracy to subjugate us all or even something which has been visited upon us by aliens.
Why some, and I won’t name them because it’s what they want, aren’t taken off the streets, I’m not quite sure why this is, unless it’s because martyrdom is what they want and the authorities are reluctant to oblige them.
In the heel of the hunt, the actions being taken are, probably, the right ones.
The communication relating to these actions is disastrous.
It’s resulted in uncertainty. It’s resulted in scepticism. It’s resulted in revolt.
It has left a gap which the crazies are only too willing t jo fill.
And that’s bad for everyone.
And could be fatal for some.Covid,
Paddy's World 