Irish Examiner View: We must take CMO’s advice seriously to prevent Covid chaos

With hospitalisation figures on the rise, including those in intensive care units, this is not a time to be blasé about the dangers of Covid-19.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Breda Smyth has advised mask-wearing on all public transport and a return to the vigorous hand hygiene regime. Picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos

It might seem a lifetime ago, but the date February 29, 2020, was a very significant one for this country.

That was the day when the first case of Covid-19 was diagnosed in this country. What was to follow was something few could have predicted as Ireland — and large tracts of the world as a whole — was thrown into a hitherto inconceivable lockdown which was to change our lives and the way we live.

Only just a year on from having most of those travelling, socialising, and mask-wearing restrictions removed from our lives and being allowed once more to return to what we considered to be “normal life”, we may be facing a return to more cautious behaviour. 

As Covid numbers spiral here and across the globe — and who knows what’s happening in China where restrictions have been eased and true infection figures are hard to come by — Ireland’s chief medical officer, Professor Breda Smyth, has advised mask-wearing on all public transport and a return to the vigorous hand hygiene regime of the early pandemic.

With hospitalisation figures on the rise and — more worryingly — an increase in the numbers of those in intensive care units, this is not a time to be blasé about the dangers of Covid-19.

A bit like Gerry Adams’ assertion about the IRA in 1995, that they “haven’t gone away, you know”, so too it is the case with this awful virus.

If we do not want a return of severely curtailed lives, then it might be wise for us as a nation to take very seriously the words of our chief medical officer.