Covid 19 Part XXI-27,908 in ROI (1,777 deaths) 6,647 in NI (559 deaths)(22/08)Read OP

Arghus wrote: »

Back when Harris, Varadkar and others were saying that about how long people can put up with restrictions I think they genuinely hadn't envisioned a situation where the virus would still be spreading going into the Autumn. I think they accepted that it might take April, May and some of June, but the situation would have definitely righted itself by August, sure look we have a plan to have all the pubs open again by August 10th, things are surely going to be sound by then... There was a total naivete about how truly long and drawn out this is all going to be. Varadkar himself made comments during the week about how he was initially expecting it to be a sharp shock to the economy, but now reckons it's going to go on and on. That underlines to me how a essential misunderstanding of the reality - even a hopeful innocence - shaped everyone's thinking back in the early days.

Something like this occurring was beyond all of our comprehension and understanding in January and February. And that includes all our leaders and decision makers. They aren't equipped really to dealing with this, like we're all not really equipped to dealing with this. There's no set playbook with guaranteed outcomes that we can turn too. And that drives people crazy, but, unfortunately, that's the nature of what we're dealing with here. What's the point of the government saying this will all be over in x or y weeks or months? They don't know that. No one does. Could be five months, could be twenty months. People don't want to accept that uncertainty. They want to be told that it's all overblown and that things will be totally fine once all those restrictions are lifted or that this plan will 100% work. Not going to happen. It's delusional, but delusion can be very appealing, especially at a time like this of great stress and worry.

As it turns out you can't just make something like this go away by adding time to the equation. I'm sure the government would love to eradicate this virus tomorrow and throw open the doors to businesses everywhere, but it's not as simple as that. Restrictions are going to continue, because the alternative to restrictions is more virus and that's never going to be seriously countenanced by government. Right now we have a two thirds functional economy, but if we take the foot of the brakes we'll be right back, eventually, in even more restrictions than we already have. It's inevitable. And that's more damaging potentially to the economy and society than what we're currently going through.