Clear signs that the recent wave of Covid-19 infections is receding broadly vindicates the Government’s decision not to reimpose restrictions when cases spiked in early Spring. While the health service continues to be under pressure, the number of people in hospital with the virus is declining and intensive care admissions are stable. That will reassure the Government’s public health advisers, whose models anticipated the downard trend and who, in spite of considerable external pressure, opted against recommending new restrictions in March.
Yet the situation remains more delicately poised than it might appear in a country where normal life has fully resumed and where the pandemic feels like a thing of the past. Around 30,000 new Covid cases are being recorded each week. At least some of those are reinfections, and while the majority of people will not fall severely ill, others, including those with underlying health conditions, will experience it as a very difficult, even life-threatening, illness. It is important to remember, as life returns to normal for most people, that “living with Covid” is not an option for the most vulnerable among us and that simple public health precautions such as mask-wearing in enclosed public spaces are vital in helping to ease the anxiety of many fellow citizens.
Nor is there any guarantee that the current relative lull will continue indefinitely. Covid is running rampant in many parts of the world, in conditions that are ideal for the emergence of new variants. One of these, Omicron XE, is said to be significantly more transmissible than the other Omicron variants and has already been identified in Ireland. At a minimum, the virus will continue to cause significant disruption in schools, workplaces and elsewhere for quite some time. But it is also conceivable that a new vaccine-resistant variant could force the imposition of a new round of public health restrictions. With public opinion now evenly divided on the wisdom of new restrictions, according to an Irish Times/Ipsos opinion poll last week, the political challenge such a scenario would present is hard to understate.