Fergus Finlay: There is real hope — just don't let economists knock us off the right track

I don’t remember economists worrying about the mental health of people borrowed up to their eyeballs in the Celtic Tiger, writes Fergus Finlay

Even as the greatest vaccine programme we’ve ever seen gets underway, more people are going to die, and more families are going to suffer. It even seems a bit cruel to be talking about hope in that context.

There’s hope now, isn’t there? Hope. Let me hasten to add, I’m not talking about the hope I felt ten minutes from the end of our match against Wales on Sunday. That was real —  edge of the seat stuff —  but in the end unfounded. A couple of unforced errors and that was the end of that. A heroic effort, but fruitless in the end.

Now I have to live with the further hope that we can beat England, Wales and Italy, and that Scotland saw their win against the old enemy as their Grand Slam. No more out on the full, lads!

None of us have time any more for heroic efforts that end in failure. We can’t afford unforced errors now. Because, to go back to the beginning, there’s hope again. Not unbridled hope, and not a sense that we can throw caution to the wind. Far from it. But there is real, solid hope that we can finally beat the pandemic into the ground. Who’d have thought it? At last it might just be possible to see the end of what has been a tortuous road.

It will come too late for those who have died and those who have lost loved ones. And those numbers aren’t numbers, they’re people who lived lives of value. And in too many cases died alone, without the comfort of a loved one

 In some ways, that has been the saddest aspect of the pandemic. The idea that you might die alone, and that those who loved you will be robbed of the chance to mourn the way we should, is unutterably cruel.

Even as the greatest vaccine programme we’ve ever seen gets underway, more people are going to die, and more families are going to suffer. It even seems a bit cruel to be talking about hope in that context.

In the past, many of the worst epidemics — 
diphtheria, polio, tuberculosis — took a terrible toll on young people. This pandemic is different in that it targeted an older generation. Young people have had to put their lives on hold in order to protect their parents and grandparents, and the hope now is that that is beginning to come to an end.

Always a but...

But — there’s always a but, isn’t there? — there are two things I have to say.

First of all, the reason there’s hope now is that the HSE has pulled the frying pan out of the fire. Secondly, we (all of us, I mean) could still blow it.

A few days ago, a decision was made that felt (to me, anyway) like a complete hammer blow. I haven’t a clue whether it was the right decision or the wrong one, because it was made by people far more qualified than me. But it was the decision to effectively withdraw, for the time being at least, the AstraZeneca vaccine from older people, evidently because not enough of them had participated in the trials of that vaccine.

The impact of that decision was immediate. The AstraZeneca vaccine, because it doesn’t need a deep freeze, was much more user-friendly than either of the other two approved vaccines. In effect, AstraZeneca could be brought to people, whereas people have to be brought to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, because of its so-called cold chain needs.

At a glance, that effectively meant more vulnerable people — over 80s and over 70s, especially with any underlying conditions — 
would be moved back further in the queue. It was unthinkable, surely, that frail elderly people would be asked to queue for a vaccine, especially in any kind of extreme weather.

While people like me were agonising about the crisis that was about to befall, the senior management team of the HSE set about fixing it. Within a couple of days, a new plan was put in place, with the support and design of the medical profession and especially the doctors’ unions, who displayed exemplary leadership when it was needed.

As a consequence, the hammer blow was turned into an opportunity. Everyone eligible for the vaccine in the first wave should get it through their GP’s practice — either in an office they know or somewhere nearby. And they should get it when they’re due it. That’s actually, in the circumstances, a remarkable outcome and turn around

I know — we all know — that we don’t feel the supplies of vaccine coming through quickly enough. The hiccups in supply have been one of the most exasperating features of recent weeks. But despite that, we’re building a bloody good track record in Ireland of being able to distribute the vaccine the minute it arrives. That record was jeopardised by the policy shift around AstraZeneca last week, but quick thinking on the part of the HSE has contributed to keeping hope alive.

(By the way, did anyone ever think it might be possible to put the words “quick thinking” and “HSE” in the same sentence? It just goes to show what can happen, doesn’t it?) So what we’ve got now is like a reliable train from Dublin to Cork. We know, roughly, how many stations we have to stop at, how many carriages are on the train. We even know what carriage we’re meant to get on. Over the next couple of weeks, the sequencing of the vaccination programme ought to become clearer and clearer, to the point where we can all be reasonably sure about our place in the queue.

Reopening the economy

All good news. Except, right in the middle of it, the inevitable economist pops up on Brendan O’Connor’s radio show on Sunday. He’d a grand decent fellow, Jim Power (sure nobody bad ever came out of Waterford), but Holy God. Barely is the plan put together when he rises to the bait and starts calling for the full reopening.

And of course, lest anyone think he’s lobbying, he’s careful to preface what he has to say by reference to the damage done to mental health by the lockdown, and the awfulness of the delays in areas like cancer diagnosis. If we carry on with rolling lockdowns until we’re 100% safe from the virus, says he, we are going to destroy our society.

He wasn’t quite calling for an immediate re-opening, of course, but he was definitely advocating what he called a “more pragmatic approach”. It’s what economists do, I guess.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t remember economists worrying about the mental health of people borrowed up to their eyeballs in the Celtic Tiger, or the difficulties posed for decent health care by our two-tier system. Enough already 

The best way to undo the progress now being steadily made is to start arguing again for a rapid reopening of the economy. We all got a great mental health boost at Christmas, apparently. And everything, including the reopening of the economy, was set back disastrously as a result.

We’re on a train now, and we know our destination. At worst, we’re on the platform waiting for the train to pull in. We know we have a few choices. One of the choices we face — especially around reopening — is the choice between doing it fast, or doing it right. I know what I’ll argue for.