Pandemic pushes playdates and pantos to peak of political agenda

World of Politics with Harry McGee

The most senior figures of Government spent time this week considering a blanket ban on children’s playdates and attending pantomimes. In any other moment of time, the only place you might hear that banal proposition being floated would be on the stage of the Gaiety or the Olympia – and coming from the mouth of a wicked warlock or an evil stepmother.

But Covid-19 has fundamentally changed the way we think about even the simplest of things and seemingly innocent of activities.

Oh no, it hasn’t.

Oh, yes it has!

Excuse my juvenile humour there, but what seemed trivial is now deadly serious.

A further 4,607 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Monday evening. The following day a further 5,471 new cases of Covid-19 were reported. As of that morning,  there were 579 people in hospital with the virus with 122 of those in intensive care.

“In a very short period of time, we have seen a significant and rapid deterioration in the epidemiological situation, in the as-yet-unvaccinated five to eleven-year-olds. This has resulted in a sharp increase in incidence in this age group,” said chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly had said that the situation was actually looking more positive recently, but that was before the arrival of the new variant.

Omicron by name, ominous by nature; it’s more transmissible than Delta. And as we know, Delta was more transmissible than Alpha.

The only consolation is that, so far, the new variant causes only mild symptoms. But still, everyone is taking it really seriously. The World Health Organisation has advised those over 60 not to travel until such a time as the exact nature of Omicron is known.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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