It's squeaky bum time for the Covid lockdown

Exactly 18 years ago this month, Alex Ferguson gave his most memorable interview as Manchester United manager. He coined a phrase that entered popular folklore and is as relevant for Ireland's lockdown reopening debate today as it was for the title race in 2003.

The rough Glaswegian was goading his urbane rival, Arsène Wenger, manager of Arsenal, whose once-huge league lead had been whittled down to nothing. What else was there for a scrapper such as Ferguson to do but burrow deeper under his rattled opponent’s skin?

He described the crucial moment late in a tight race when all is still to play for, nothing is certain and defeat is just as likely as victory for either side. Small interventions at this stage can have an enormous effect on the outcome. Ferguson zeroed in on the gut-twisting tension of the moment, the anguish it induces in spectators and those directly involved.

“You can be going along nicely, thinking you are doing okay and then whack – you get a disappointing result... we have to carry on doing our best. It’s getting tickly now – squeaky bum time, I call it.”

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As Ireland considers how, or even whether, to plot a pathway out of one of the most morally-draining lockdowns experienced by anyone in Europe, we are deep into our own squeaky bum time. It is like the moment immediately before a thunderstorm when the sky darkens and the air thickens and you can, quite literally, smell what’s coming on the warm wind.

All residents of this rain-soaked island will recognise that deceptively sweet odour. It smells of trouble. It hangs in the air now, as the Government wrestles with the decision it must make next week about what parts of the economy and society to reopen. A few weeks ago, it seemed certain that infection rates would be low enough to ease restrictions and allow families and businesses room to breathe. We were going along nicely, thinking we were doing ok. And then, whack.

Meanwhile, the virus has decided to rest up for a while. It sits there smirking down at us from its immovable plateau of about 600 cases per day. It knows that we’re probably damned if we do, and certainly damned if we don’t. It knows we are traumatised by the period in late November and early December when the Government last had to make a call on reopening.

Soon after that, our backside wasn’t just squeaking. It left us screaming in agony as it got kicked, hard, and more than 1,000 people died in January alone. That cannot be allowed to happen again.

Next week, the Government will probably scrap the 5km limit, the most morale-damaging part of current restrictions

That is the inescapable dilemma facing decision makers next week – reopen too much and risk filling hospitals again, or stay tightly closed and guarantee prolonging the tangible emotional anguish of this lockdown, not to mention the economic carnage being wrought. Even if the rest of us don’t have the same deliberative dilemma, we are all on the hook for some of the consequences.

That doesn’t mean that “we are all in this together”, a trite phrase that can mollify or enrage. For some people, such as construction, retail and hospitality workers and business owners, their livelihoods and perhaps even their sense of selves are suspended in abeyance. They have far more at stake in squeaky bum time than most others. As the oldest and most physically vulnerable get vaccinated, the plight of the most economically-vulnerable younger workers moves into sharper focus.

Some among us – mostly those who are salaried, working from home and comfortable – consistently argue that these dilemmas do not really exist. They say the way forward is obvious and unobscured and we should always just “follow the science”, as if there has ever been just the one school of thought in science with a bible whose pages we merely have to thumb for enlightenment. What these people make up for in stridency, they lack in empathy towards others at the sharp end of the risk. Their most common definition of “following the science” also seems to be: leave everything closed.

The never-openers sometimes remind me of Quint, the seaboat captain in Jaws who tries to draw the shark into shallow waters to drown it. The engine is at its limit as it strains and rattles, smoking like a bonfire. Quint’s companions tell him to ease up but, obsessed and stubborn, instead he cranks up the throttle further. The engine gives up and then explodes, and it is Quint and his companions who almost drown, not the shark. The Irish population is the engine and we are straining. The virus is the shark.

Next week, the Government will probably scrap the 5km limit, the most morale-damaging part of current restrictions. But this is moot, because many people scrapped it themselves weeks ago out of emotional necessity. It is utterly unenforceable if a significant number of people no longer buy into the concept.

Retail wants the return of click & collect services, but I suspect the sector will have to wait until May. In the weeks ahead, construction will be ahead of retail in the queue for economic reopening. Hospitality will follow last as summer looms.

In construction, sites employing 40,000 workers are currently open and the same again are laid off. The 5km rule is dead, mobility is already increasing after three months of paralysis, so the marginal benefit of keeping 40,000 essential workers on the dole to reduce mobility among a population of 5 million is, at best, debatable. The optics won’t look good for the Government either way. But on balance, it makes sense to give way here, unless there is an almighty virus surge in the days ahead.

The always-reopeners, whose thinking I can personally relate to better than the others, must also show some humility. It has to be accepted that at 600 cases per day, it might be taking an immoral risk with the lives and health of other citizens to go much further than that for now. Soon, as soon as possible, but not yet. The nation cannot remain traumatised and paralysed by Christmas forever. But we should stay mindful of it. Israel, which appears to be acing the reopening test so far, didn’t begin rolling back restrictions in earnest until more than 50 per cent of its population was vaccinated.

Meanwhile, we must endure and pick our way safely and sanely through squeaky bum time. As Ferguson said: “It’s in our hands now… there are no guarantees, of course. But it’s probably our biggest challenge ever.”