Irish Examiner view: Discipline is vital as pandemic escalates

Pandemic is climbing towards a decisive moment as Ireland sees more than 3,000 Covid-19 cases a day

Paul Reid, CEO Health Service Executive (HSE), said people need to reduce contacts and stay at home in the coming days and weeks if we are to minimise the risk of infection, or, worse unknowingly spreading the infection.

Convention, or maybe it's a conceit, decrees that certain occasions, certain dates expect us to put our best foot forward. It demands that we try to look to the sunny side of life, to accentuate the positive. 

The opening days of any new year, just like a beloved niece or nephew's wedding, demand we set off the fireworks, put on the glad rags and step forth with optimism and a conquer-the-world bounce in our step. 

This year, for all too obvious reasons, that might be so delusional as to be counter-productive. 

The accelerating pandemic means that a relationship with reality on a par with White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany's is necessary if today's slings and arrows are to be ignored as her president did in the early stages of America's pandemic.  

In another January we might tell that beloved niece or nephew that the world is their oyster — it will be again — but today the best, most reassuring advice seems to be that this crisis, like all others, will pass. Just like McEnany's drum beating.

Friday's prediction from HSE chief executive Paul Reid that Ireland could see 3,000 Covid-19 cases a day suggests that the pandemic is climbing towards a decisive moment.

Mr Reid was speaking as the country's testing system, so far exemplary, struggles to keep pace with demand.  The health chief said the service is on "high alert" as cases rise while contact tracing and testing tackle the spreading infection. 

Emphasising the obvious but too often ignored advice, he said people need to reduce contacts and stay at home in the coming days and weeks if we are to minimise the risk of infection, or, worse unknowingly spreading the infection.

 

The suggestion that there may be as many as 4,000 unconfirmed cases in the commuity comes as 35,000 test swabs were taken on Thursday. 

Mr Reid conceded that our system cannot cope with these numbers. Yet, that grim realistion is exacerbated by, comparatively at least, runaway figures in Northern Ireland. 

How long can it be, how many more lives will be lost before and all-island policy is agreed and put in place?

Meanwhile, healthcare assistant Mariter Tarugo (60) became Dublin hospital St Vincent’s first Fillipino/Irish frontline worker to die of the disease.

The Dalkey local is survived by her daughter Nice Marie Tarugo, also a healthcare worker, and her husband Nicolas (69), who survived a battle with the virus. 

Vaccines cannot reach these exposed workers quickly enough and they deserve particular priority.

And there is a ray of light — an additional 2,000 19 vaccines have been made available to staff in three Cork hospitals this weekend. 

The South/South West Hospital Group (S/SWHG) confirmed the allocation which will be given to "public-facing health care staff" in Cork University Hospital, Mercy University Hospital, and South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital by tomorrow.