Daniel McConnell: Every vaccine delay means an extra week of business and school closures
Buildings, Briefing Dublin A Government Julien Leader Leo Green Behal Picture: Party The At Photography And Meeting Taoiseach Martin, Cabinet Media Wednesday Tánaiste Eamon Following Varadkar On Micheál Ryan
While we knew what was coming, the news when it came was brutal.
Three weeks of a full-scale national lockdown, the third escalation of restrictions in as many weeks.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, flanked by Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Ministers Eamon Ryan and Norma Foley didn’t sugarcoat the message.
Ireland is “under siege” and facing “a tsunami of infection,” the Taoiseach told us.
The restrictions are needed as the country currently has more Covid-19 patients in our hospitals than ever before.
“That is why we are doing this. And that is why we must dig deep within ourselves and face the coming months with steely determination and resolve. We simply have to suppress this surge and flatten the curve.
"Once again, the personal decisions that each and every one of us makes over the coming month will directly affect how many more people get sick and how many more people die. It’s as stark and simple as that,” he said.
Mr Martin said the restrictions would remain in place until at least January 31, when a review of the situation would take place. The “at least” hung ominously.
Even in the darkest moments there is hope #StayHome #StaySafe pic.twitter.com/luEyZqtFst
— Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) January 6, 2021
Noting that some businesses will close "for the last time" due to the new restrictions, Mr Varadkar said: “This is bad and it's getting worse.”
January is the month we stay in, he added.
Such a fate would see such businesses closed for a further 12 weeks from now.
Twelve weeks.
To emphasise the cruel and unrelenting nature of the new restrictions, the Government has also put a stop to click and collect retail purchases.
Predictably enough, most of the focus was on the decision to close the schools save for special needs children and those 60,000 students sitting the Leaving Cert who will attend three days a week.
Both the Taoiseach and Ms Foley were at pains to defend the decision not to follow the example of the UK and cancel the State exams now, rather than repeat the misery heaped upon students last year.
Before the press conference was even over, the union and opposition reaction was hitting the airwaves and it was not positive.
The plans were “cobbled together” and “premature” and taken without any consultation with the main stakeholders, they cried.
“How can they keep them safe?” asked Mary Lou McDonald but did say she wants to see the Leaving Cert go ahead as normal.
"If we are asking people to take these necessary, tough measures then the least the people deserve is a government that has its homework done – and in education and childcare that is clearly NOT the case." – @MaryLouMcDonald on the new #Covid19Ireland restrictions and measures pic.twitter.com/TlMB6WYLqs
— Sinn Féin (@sinnfeinireland) January 6, 2021
While there may be a reluctant acceptance to stomach the latest and hardest lockdown, the obvious question which needs to be asked is – where is the vaccine and why are we so slow in rolling it out?
Every week of delay in the vaccine being rolled out is an extra week of lockdown, an extra week of business closures, school closures and strain on the national mood. The public have no patience for red tape or bureaucratic delays.
They have only had 10 months to get prepared for this scenario and still can’t get it right. It simply is not good enough.