Conflicting messages help steer Covid-19 confusion to new levels

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

Politics can throw up unusual weeks, unreal weeks, bizarre weeks, comedic weeks, tragic weeks – even tragicomic weeks. This week – and it’s not over yet – had the lot. The Government’s new Covid-19 plan was always going to be problematic. It was too long being baked and just when it was ready to come out, somebody slammed the door of the oven.

And the door slam was Dublin.

The Covid-19 alert plan might have worked if conditions all over the country were roughly similar – but in the past few weeks, there has been a marked increase in cases in Dublin that has caused serious concern.

And so in the week leading up to the publication of the plan on Tuesday, the trajectory was looking bad. The new cases were running into the hundreds and well over half were in Dublin.

On Monday there were some 200 cases, with more than 100 in Dublin. Of the 357 cases announced on Tuesday, almost 220 were from the capital.

The pattern here could be ominous. The rate per 100,000 people over a fortnight has risen to a 100. That’s five times more than many western counties – including Galway, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo.

The difficulty was that in the new five-level alert plan there is a big jump between Level 2 and Level 3 (but not such a big one between Level 1 and 2).

You can’t attend matches at Level 3. You have to work from home. You can’t visit other people’s homes. You are not allowed to travel around your own county.

As Micheál Martin and Stephen Donnelly argued it would have been a serious decision to move to Level 3 – and they were right.

But the difficulty was that we have known for much of September that Dublin was in a different place from the rest of the country.

When the Cabinet sub-committee, chaired by Martin, met on Monday, it was made aware of the potential gravity of the situation in Dublin. The infection had increased ten-fold in the county in the space of a few weeks and there was no sign of the numbers abating.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app

The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.