Aoife Moore: Parties hoping for vaccine bounce, but their bubble is about to burst

We have been granted the tiniest of freedoms this week, being allowed travel beyond our 5km. Amid doubts over various vaccines, though, how can we believe any promises being made for summer?

A member of the public passing street art on Chatham Row, Dublin, during the level 5 lockdown. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Better days are coming, we’re told, but it’s hard to see through the misery.

There are reasons for hope, no doubt, as we heard at the Oireachtas health committee yesterday that, as of April 11, the 14-day incidence rate decreased to 132 per 100,000 population, a reduction of 15% from the previous week. The five-day moving average of new cases reduced to 404, a reduction of 23% from the previous week and case numbers reported on Sunday were the lowest since mid-December.

On April 12, there were 227 Covid patients in acute hospitals, down 12.7% from the previous week. The average number of deaths being reported over a seven-day period has fallen from 49 at the end of January to eight per day.

This has been brought about by the hard work of the public and our frontline healthcare staff, a sense of community and looking out for others, not because of any great carrot-and-stick argument from the Government.

Monday brought a new horizon, the ability to travel beyond 5km and despite, in the great scheme of things, this being the tiniest of freedoms, there is a renewed sense of hope, a collective breath for a stifled population stuck in a proverbial (and literal, in many cases) box room.

The fact the population has toed the line so dutifully in the face of some of the most calamitous scenes an Irish Government has ever landed on the public is a stark example of the duty of care people feel for their friends and neighbours.

We have seen our European neighbours, Italy, Germany, and Belgium, march against and clash with what they feel are uncaring governments who have left them alone in their plight.

Looking back to April last year, the thought that we would breathe a collective sigh of relief at the numbers lowering to below 400 is a testament to how muddled our thinking has become, because our new normal, for the entirety of 2021, has been several hundred cases a day.

We know that the reason for this is the prevalence of the B117 variant, so contagious that the Tánaiste admitted that we’re unlikely to ever see cases in the double digits again. We also know that this variant spread mostly at Christmas when Nphet’s advice was ignored.

Calls for mandatory hotel quarantine by the public health body were made last May, but have only now been implemented in the most half-hearted and politically posturing way imaginable. The Government told people for months that they could not travel beyond 5km of their home, but allowed passengers to jet in from across the globe, while inferring that those who raised the starkness of the issue were xenophobic.

People queuing to receive the vaccine at the  Covid-19 vaccination centre in the SSE Arena, Belfast, recently.

The Irish population have wrung their hands, tutted, and written to newspapers as we suffered through the longest lockdown in Europe, Golfgate, the decision and fallout from ignoring Nphet advice at Christmas, and yet, even now in the halls of Leinster House, those who inhabit the Government benches expect an electoral “bounce” from the vaccine rollout.

So out of touch are those TDs that they assume the population will be grateful they managed to get a vaccine at all, despite watching the seamless rollout from our Northern neighbours who are due to be released back into civilisation this week. They had no stories of vaccine queue jumping and no tales of the ability of the privileged few to stand in front of the vulnerable with their arm out of their jumper. We know that it doesn’t have to be this way, despite what we are being told.

Sources in Government are lining up to tell journalists they are putting their hopes on a renewed boost for their parties in the summer, with more of the population vaccinated and the public allowed to staycation.

The thought that the Government will even meet its June target of 80% of adults getting their first vaccine dose looks increasingly like a pipe dream as we acknowledge the caution needed regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine and news that the US has called for the postponement of its rollout of Johnson & Johnson vaccine, another victim of the ill-fated descriptor “game-changer”.

We've had so many game-changers that if it were a game of football, they'd have moved stadiums and altered the rules of the game beyond all recognition.

Those who criticised the handling of the vaccine rollout were accused of criticising the hard work done by those on the frontline in administering the vaccine, a claim so political and cynical it would take some beating for years to come.

As hospital numbers and deaths continue to decrease, there will be calls for the loosening of restrictions.

There is a case to be made for further reopening as long as the health services are not put under pressure and as long as the vaccine rollout continues.

Those who haven’t seen a day’s work in over a year deserve some semblance of a plan for when they can return to work and open their businesses. Due to the Government’s caution, which has built with each calamity, they continue to go wanting.

The public, like the Government, continues to hear about issues with the vaccine rollout when they’re flagged in the media — repeated appointments, a buckling booking system, and issues with queue jumping. And yet they continue, while an impatient and unvaccinated public reads of a minister’s emails to officials that they’re not being mentioned enough on social media.

Most of us see being vaccinated before August as a pipe dream at the minute and, with each passing day, hear little to change our minds.

Those in Government who expect a grateful public when vaccination day eventually comes are likely to see their Leinster House bubble burst.