Time for a zero-Covid strategy, urge opposition parties

PBP wants mandatory quarantine for travellers, fines for employers unwilling to let staff work from home, and a hard lockdown across the State

Richard Boyd Barrett TD during a press briefing by People Before Profit at Leinster House. File Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

It is time for the Government to "break from a failed strategy" in tackling the pandemic and unite behind a zero-Covid approach.

That is the message from People Before Profit (PBP), which says that the "dire situation" of struggling hospitals, high community transmission, and building stress is proof of the need for a change in strategy.

Zero-Covid would mean mandatory quarantine for travellers, fines for employers found to be unwilling to let staff work from home, and a hard lockdown across the State until Covid has disappeared from the community.

PBP's Richard Boyd Barrett said: "We think the opposition has a responsibility not just to criticise what is clearly a failed government strategy but to offer an alternative.

Unless we adopt a different strategy, we will go into lockdown four and possibly into lockdown five before we have sufficient rates of vaccination.

The zero-Covid approach has been rejected by the Government due to the open border with the North.

PBP said it would be "very much preferable" to have the entire island pursuing the same strategy but that it is "not absolutely critical".

"What's necessary is the political will to get us out of this dire cycle of surge and lockdown and create green zones where you eliminate community transmission and then people can actually start to live a life again," Mr Boyd Barrett said.

Both Sinn Féin and Labour say they agree with most of the premise of Zero-Covid approach but they do not believe it is possible without political will to pursue the same in the North.