Irish Examiner view: No option but to follow guidelines

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly TD announced that the first vaccines will be administered on December 30.

Last Monday we marked the winter solstice which, in the Northern hemisphere, was the shortest, darkest, day of the year. The sun, if it appeared at all, was at its most southerly position, directly overhead at the faraway Tropic of Capricorn. The day, long before the Newgrange passage tomb and its skylights admitting the solstice dawn was built, around 3,200 BC, was recognised as a precursor to rejuvenation. The solstice was then welcomed as the moment when if the tide didn’t quite turn it stopped ebbing seaward.

That seems an appropriate metaphor for our position today in the intensifying fight against Covid-19. The timing may be slightly out of kilter but the darkness is unquestionable, the coming Newgrange ray of light precious. The need to believe that recovery and rejuvenation are at hand certainly grows more important by the day. The inevitable announcement yesterday of an early, Christmas-gazumping return to the strictest pandemic guidelines intensifies that darkness but, like the solstice, those rules may in time be seen as the point at which a new cycle of life began.