Irish Examiner view: Ever more reasons for optimism

The joy of students returning to classrooms yesterday was palpable to the point of being infectious

Fatima Alsattous and Treasure Uvama students from Presentation Secondary School, Tralee delighted to be back at school yesterday. Picture: Domnick Walsh

Though it is best to ration war-time analogies, they can, occasionally, be more than apt. This morning, one from 1942 — Churchill’s “end of the beginning” speech reviewing the second battle of El Alamein — seems appropriate. It is, still, a perfect distillation of achievement and confidence, but resolutely tempered by the scale of the challenges unmet.

Churchill knew it was important to recognise longed-for achievement, but that by understating the remaining challenge that achievement would, ultimately, stand for naught.

And so it is with the pandemic. The joy of students interviewed as they returned to classrooms yesterday, after an unprecedented absence, was palpable to the point of being infectious. Like the advancing spring, they cheered the country. Those young people can resume life’s journey, learning from their teachers and, almost as importantly, from each other. Many will need particular help to make up lost ground. It should be one of the priorities of the return-to-school success that resources are put in place to support those who may not have enjoyed remote learning. There could hardly be a better investment in our future.

Yesterday’s recommendation from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee that the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine be restricted to people over 60 is a different, but equally important, kind of investment. It invests in science and caution, following reports of a possible link between the vaccine and rare blood-clotting issues. 

Though the incidence is tiny, and though the benefits of this vaccine far outweigh the risks, health authorities have little option but to flag the issue and act accordingly.

Nevertheless, this might be seen as a new concentration of resources rather than a missed opportunity. There is no shortage of people in the over-60 bracket ready and happy to use that antidote and, as falling incidence rates show, vaccination is having the expected and desired impact. That impact will deepen if this week’s target of vaccinating 180,000 more people is met — though the decision to cancel all of today’s planned AstraZeneca vaccination clinics will hinder this.

As a likely result, the hope that 80% of the population might be vaccinated by the end of June is again under stress.

Eventually that happy milestone will be met, and a cheering example of what we might expect then is close at hand.

Yesterday, Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, urged people to “behave responsibly” as pub gardens reopened and restaurants resumed outdoor dining in a major rollback of pandemic restrictions in England. Non-essential shops also reopened, as did hairdressers, indoor gyms, swimming pools, nail salons, and zoos. The 10pm curfew rule and the requirement to order a substantial meal with a drink were consigned to history, but social distancing remains.

There are many ways — some positive, some less so — to view our response to the pandemic, but it now seems possible to believe that efforts and understanding are co-ordinated in a way that makes that famous old El Alamein rallying cry valid one more time.