Irish Examiner view: Take the hard decisions on Covid now

Tweaks to our behaviour, such as mask-wearing, will help quell Covid — but further restrictions now seem almost inevitable

Rosie O'Toole discovering how sometimes history repeats itself at the Small Lives exhibition, including this panel about the 1918 flu pandemic, at Cork's Nano Nagle Centre in September 2020. Picture: Clare Keogh

The latest advice on staying safe from Covid is that we only need a slight moderation in our behaviour to stay safe and protect others. That seems sensible and measured advice that we can all take on board, but must go hand-in-hand with an appropriate assessment of risk.

It was around this time last year that lockdown restrictions were about to be eased. Before they were this newspaper’s editorial said “these are hard times and demand hard decisions, avoiding them is not a solution or wise”. 

We now face into another difficult few weeks in which it appears almost inevitable that we will face further restrictions.

Many issues have arisen, almost all of which have been exacerbated by poor communication, from indecision on the requirement for antigen tests to confusion on the spread of the virus in schools and that vaccinated people could still carry Covid-19. There was a mistaken belief that two doses of vaccine (or even one) would be enough for us to be out of the woods. But the pandemic evolves and we must all deal with that.

The decision to ease restrictions in recent months were the right ones. Our country had lived a semi-hermetic life for too long and protecting the vulnerable became entwined with the vulnerable being isolated, out of work and lacking support. But it is hard to see why we are now in a position where the next lockdown decision will be made in two or three weeks, just a few weeks before Christmas, while our healthcare system and those working on the frontline risk collapse. 

The head of the HSE has warned of the “unthinkable” consequences of hospital capacity being “insufficient to meet anticipated demand”. 

Leaving people waiting for the inevitable tightening of restrictions risks losing the will and support of the public, the vast majority of whom have played their part.