My heart sank a little this when I read a Tweet by Waterford-based paramedic Clive O’Regan this afternoon.
“Seems to be a lot of people out and about in Waterford today, driving and walking,” he posted. “People need to ask themselves are these necessary journeys.”
We do not appear to be out of the woods when it comes to the worst excesses of the Covid-19 coronavirus so why anyone would consider altering their behaviour until expert opinion states otherwise escapes me. There are far worse places – on the whole – to be stuck than at home so why have some people decided that now’s the time to slacken off a little?
And can anyone explain why someone in a four-wheel drive today saw nothing untoward in running the barriers at Tramore’s Promenade, which is currently closed to traffic?
Closing the Prom was the sensible move on the basis that a sufficient number of people simply could not be trusted to do the right thing.
I have little doubt that the scenes in Tramore the previous weekend, in addition to Glendalough, Howth, etc, led the National Public Health Emergency Team to recommend a ramping-up of Covid-19 dampening measures on Friday last. Yet still today, and even if was just one motorist who opted to play the idiot card, it was still one too many.
We’ve never been required to stymie our inner gobshite quite so much and one suspects we will have to suppress our tendency for eejitry for quite some time to come. Quelling gobshitery ought to be a badge of honour we should all be proud to wear.
We must think in the long term if the Covid-19 curve is to be flattened to such an extent that it will no longer be considered a public health threat. More importantly, we must act to rid ourselves of this menace as promptly as we can. That means washing your hands repeatedly, making only essential journeys and, most importantly of all, staying at home. We must remain committed to delivering upon those three objectives and not hit the road ‘for a spin’ because you and your other half are bored. Tough. Suck it up and act neighbourly.
Dr Catherine Motherway, the President of the Intensive Care Society of Ireland, told RTE’s Sean O’Rourke this morning: “One would devoutly hope that the measures that we are putting in place and that hopefully everyone is following would help halt and or slow the spread and diminish somewhat the curve.”
In relation to how our hospital’s Intensive Care Units (ICU) are faring at present, Dr Motherway stated: “We are under significant pressure in Dublin, to be fair. This morning, we have 107 confirmed ventilated cases with a further 26 suspected so the number of cases are rising and there is no doubt that the hospitals in the East are being hit first as we expected and are under significant pressure…and are managing to deal with the caseload by both surging beyond their routine capacity and also by transferring patients to other hospitals in their group where they have capacity. So at the moment they are coping with the numbers but there’s no doubt we’re under significant pressure and we’re quite concerned…now we can’t control it (the surge); the people that are listening to you and me can control it by staying at home, doing what they’re asked to do, washing their hands, good hand hygiene, good cough etiquette and physical distancing, if they do have to leave the house for work, is really important.”
Dr Motherway said that this message simply cannot be refrained with enough regularity. “I’m sorry to be repeating myself so often but it is the only thing that will manage to control the surge and we will try and respond to the number of sick patients that come into us as best we can. But it is the actions of the population as a whole that will diminish the spread and hopefully control somewhat that peak that we are expecting in about two weeks’ time.”
So between now and April 12th, at an absolute minimum, keep doing what Catherine Motherway and the Irish clinical and emergency response community are repeatedly asking us to do. For God’s sake, Stay At Home. Now is not a time for gobshites. So don’t act like one.
For updated factual information on Covid-19, visit www.hse.ie/coronavirus
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