Will there be another lockdown?

They don't appear to be reluctant to bring in restrictions at all (although what's left to restrict, I don't know). Members of the Government have been in the media non-stop warning people to behave or else lockdowns and/or restrictions will be introduced. O'Dea of Limerick the latest. And the people are supposed to be their boss, and yet they just talk down to people all the time.

I really don't understand why there is this insistence on sowing panic and spreading fear in Ireland especially. Okay, I've spoken before about how the fourth estate in Ireland is moribund and how the political system, and by extension the democratic system is moribund, but so many academics, scientists and doctors insist on giving no hope to people and on doing tremendous harm to people's mental health and wellbeing. That I don't understand. They're not in government and are speaking as private persons. And I'm not just talking about now. I mean since the start of the two weeks to flatten the curve. It's been nothing but negativity.

Have you ever heard an Irish public health person say anything similar to the following:

"The formal lockdowns had enormous consequences and to pretend otherwise is not right. The other thing I'd say is that the fear of the disease itself was part of the public health strategy. It was essentially a inducement of panic, so that if anyone said anything that suggests that, well, for children, maybe the disease is not so harmful. You get jumped on. The New York Times spent all of last summer trying to panic the parents over sending their children back to school, for instance.

... and the fear is part of the public health... I mean, I don't know how else to say it, I mean, I probably think of a more polite way to say it, but it was essentially a propaganda campaign to induce panic in the population." - Professor Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University

There were a handful of doctors who tried to offer a bit of balance, but they were swiftly shut down, unfortunately.

But it has happened in the past that decisions were made a few months in advance. In England, for example, the journalist Neil Clark has an inside source in the government. His inside source told him in January that restrictions wouldn't be eased until July: https://mobile.twitter.com/neilclark66/status/1345017917205868545

Sure enough, that's what happened.

Jesus wept, New Zealand has a population almost identical to Ireland, so far In New Zealand, from 3 January 2020 to6:10pm CET, 22 November 2021, there have been 9,811 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 40 deaths, reported to WHO.

How on earth could New Zealand’s policies be considered a failure?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/new-zealand/

Schools. Has to be.

But so what. We can't close them again so we just need to keep going.