:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/PO5QAHKBSV3MH7BY4EHTJ7OCLY.jpg)
:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/irishtimes/d0f1bd35-542b-40dc-b8fe-585945c60b70.png)
Holed up at home for four months and bored half to death by lockdown, Netflix has assumed an unhealthy significance in my life, as it has for others. Its catalogue is an on-tap reminder that there is a whole world out there beyond the 5km limit to which we were subjected until this week. If you can't visit a particular place, well, there'll be a Netflix series about it.
Recently, I stumbled upon Baptiste, a BBC-made series about a slightly grizzled retired French detective who becomes embroiled in a kidnap and murder case in Amsterdam. Great, I thought to myself. I love Amsterdam. I’ll live vicariously through this guy, with his limp and penchant for bother.
It started out well but after a few episodes, it became labyrinthine. It was watchable and occasionally gripping. But there were too many incredible plot twists, and I began to wonder if the script writers had spent too much time in Amsterdam, sampling its infamous delights.
The narrative arc gave me whiplash. Good guys became bad guys, who became good guys again, and then... oh what on earth is going on here? Characters that had seemed central were suddenly discarded for no reason, murdered out of the plot. Plot? The writers lost theirs as the show went off the deep end, drowning in ridiculous U-turns.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/BYG4SETSQ3EWKG5YSI2I367S2Q.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/NBSPHMFEJPPJCNM7SBTDY2Q5T4.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/RXCK6KLKDIBRIUCZFZAYL2ZTRE.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/CIIKO5C2LS2L22LE2BGEALELDY.jpg)
By the end, I felt as battered and weary as our limping, frowning hero. How could a television show feel so confusing and dispiriting? In recent days, that sinking feeling returned. They haven’t released the show’s second series yet. The feeling is down to Ireland’s Baptistian vaccination rollout. The updates could bring on a migraine.
Assyrian empire
It started out full of hope in January. Then AstraZeneca wasn't good enough for old people so they got Pfizer-BioNTech. Then AstraZeneca stiffed Europe and all seemed lost. Then it redeemed itself with promises of more deliveries. Janssen's one-shot jab was approved. We can do this. Then, disaster! AstraZeneca caused dangerous blood clots. Then we were told the danger was overplayed. Then it became credible again. Suddenly younger people, not the elderly, were in danger. Then Janssen went the same way. The June target of vaccinating 80 per cent of adults was doomed. Then Pfizer stepped in and it was saved.
Is Julien Baptiste on Nphet?
It isn’t just the vaccination rollout. Ireland’s overall fight against coronavirus has, since Christmas, been up and down like the Assyrian empire. We were among the worst in Europe, even the world, in January. By March we were the best in Europe again. Daily infection rates stopped falling. Or did they? Oh look, they’re rising again. Falling once more.
Mandatory hotel quarantine is “unworkable”, said the Government, about five minutes before the Cabinet approved it. Then they stepped it up to keep out new virus variants. Now it seems they’re watering it down again.
Against this backdrop, which more closely resembles a bowl of spaghetti than a strategy, the tourism industry is meant to plan for the only window it is likely to get in 2021 to do some decent trade. The staycation season that corresponds with primary school holidays of July and August will be the industry’s only meal of the year. Its breakfast, lunch and dinner, meat and veg, bread and butter.
Northern Ireland was due to release its plan for the hospitality and tourism sector on Thursday. England has already reopened its sector, which we all watched longingly on news reports, as crowds gathered outdoors in Soho. The UK, is, of course, six to eight weeks ahead on its vaccination rollout, but its plans were still laid out well in advance by Boris Johnson’s government.
Morgan Stanley released a research note on Thursday suggesting Europe should have enough people vaccinated by the end of June to contemplate a stab at the glorious-looking reopening that the people of Israel have enjoyed in recent weeks. Yet the only economic signals our Government will send are that the rest of construction, and then possibly retail click and collect, and then maybe the rest of the retail sector, will reopen in May.
It looks like the hospitality sector might become the focus in June. But that will surely be staggered according to the Government’s cautious reopening philosophy. It is also very close to July.
For political as well as public health reasons, it is understandable why Ministers would want to proceed gingerly. They are scarred by what happened after the scale and depth of the Christmas misjudgment. Such a humanitarian disaster can never be allowed to happen again.
Carnage
But with the vaccination rollout picking up pace, even if its direction is esoteric, how likely is it that such carnage could unfold again? Perhaps major regression is possible, even if it is not on the scale of January, and only a political fool would turn a complete tin ear to public health experts at this stage of the pandemic, given all that has gone before.
But just as it must avoid another public health disaster, the Government must also keep its eye on the clock and avoid sleepwalking into an economic disaster for the tourism and hospitality sectors by allowing the reopening to slip too deep into the summer. If it does, it will ruin the staycation season and, with it, any chance of the survival of myriad small businesses.
The €270 million Stay and Spend domestic tourism incentive scheme runs out this month, with barely €1.6 million drawn down. The Government hasn’t yet breathed a word about what, if anything, might replace it, or how the State might deploy the unused firepower to further help the industry.
The nation remains neurotic about daily infection rates and it is unclear how politicians will react to the numerical regression that seems possible after the full reopening of schools and retail this month and next. Could they panic and pause the reopening of hospitality and domestic tourism?
Nobody seems to have any idea when the inter-county travel restrictions will be lifted, essential if there is to be any domestic tourism. There are no dates, no plan. Yet staff must be retrained, stock bought, outdoor dining infrastructure installed. How can that be done while most commercial construction is banned?
And there is always the possibility that the skittish vaccination rollout could take another gargantuan twist to make Julien Baptise proud, throwing an uncertain reopening timeline into chaos.
Whether through indecision or a nasty surprise, the risk is rising that the vital six- to eight-week staycation season will come under threat. If that happens, many SMEs will finally crumble and all their State supports to date will have been in vain.
The Government must look ahead and at least try to lay out a plan for the domestic sector, and not keep looking over its shoulder at Christmas.