We need to fight off the virus upsurge without destroying entire sectors of the economy

If the idea of solidarity in this crisis means anything, we should not just chuck a few hundred thousand people out of lower-level jobs simply to assuage our own fears, without first exhausting every possible alternative.

If, for their sakes, the people charged with leading Ireland’s battle against the coronavirus are not prepared to follow other European countries by putting in the effort to seek less damaging ways to do it, then, please, spare me any dewy-eyed talk that “we are all in this together”. For it means nothing.

The pseudo row this week between the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and the chief medical officer Tony Holohan over Nphet's call for a fresh lockdown to dampen the virus was not – as some have argued – a dangerous distraction. It was a healthy exchange. It was necessary to remind people that each time the State pulls the big red switch on the economy, the suffering is not equally felt.

That point got lost in the fog of war towards the end of the last lockdown. Its absence from the centre of government thinking at that time caused the summer’s noisy schism between the business community and policymakers, whose ears were attuned only for medical advice.

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If control of infection rates is the only metric by which some policymakers feel publicly measured, then any hammer will do to keep smashing the numbers down. Hard restrictions are the heaviest hammer: effective, but horribly inefficient. The effects of that inefficiency are most acutely felt not by those wielding the hammer, but by those who are flattened beneath its sickening thud.

Once this empathy gap was belatedly realised in the summer, the Government rushed to get most things open again just to make the noisy schism go away. It did so without first putting in place the necessary economic enablers required to underpin the whole endeavour, such as a top class testing and tracing system; sufficient resources for regional public health specialists to hunt down outbreak sources; a data map of where new infections were happening and why; and a properly resourced public communications campaign designed to engender more desirable public behaviour over the longer term.

It was much easier to attempt to control people’s behaviour by relying on cheap public shaming through social media and, now that the effectiveness of that has worn off, authoritarian threats of fines and laws. And look where that has led us: into the middle of a divisive swamp.

Ireland’s restrictions were too hard for too long and the stress and fear that is a feature of the national conversation here has made many people tired. Tired people are less alert and often they cease to care.

The cohort with the most to lose economically from a return to the toughest restrictions is easily measurable. There are now 205,000 people receiving the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP), of which 40 per cent work in hospitality and retailing. At the height of the restrictions, to which Nphet wants us to return, 580,000 were on PUP.

That’s 375,000 people whose livelihoods, whose sense of self reliance through the dignity of work, are on the line here. Probably close to 100,000 are employed in and around construction. But the majority are employed in another sector that can operate freely under Level 3, but which is mostly shut down under Levels 4 and 5: retailing.

These are among the most modestly-paid workers in the State and they are as deserving of solidarity as any of the rest of us, as we work from home in our virtually unaffected roles, or draw public salaries, or guaranteed pension payments.

Leaving construction aside for a moment, the two biggest differences between the restrictions we are under now, and higher levels sought by Nphet, are having visitors to our homes, and going shopping.

Evidence

If the consequence of the additional restrictions advocated by Tony Holohan and Nphet is to put somewhere close to a quarter of a million workers in retailing and its supply chain out of work to fight the virus, then we should be provided with the statistical evidence that shows that shopping is a major virus spreader. Assumptions are not good enough. If shopping is an inexorable spreader of infection, then there will be empirical evidence to show this: the infection rates among retail workers who spend their working days in such environments.

If it cannot be empirically shown that retail workers are more likely than other people to get infected, then we are entitled to question Holohan and Nphet on why shutting down shops – with all the economic misery that will cause – will give a corresponding boost to the anti-virus fight.

There are other factors, of course, such as the transport people take to the shops and their general movement while shopping. But if people had been better schooled to buy-in to safer behaviour, as opposed to being shamed and now threatened into line, these risks surely could have been mitigated.

Has Nphet or the Department of Health or anybody on the medical side of the house commissioned a study of infection rates among shop workers? Do the contact tracing staff who ring the infected ask them for their occupations? Is that data collated and analysed? The only evidence that I know of in relation to shop worker infection rates is anecdotal and comes from the shops themselves, and it suggests the numbers are low.

The obvious rebuttal to my entire line of argument is that the impact of tougher restrictions on lower-paid workers can be dealt with by enhancing the PUP regime. In effect: give them more dole so that they stay quiet. That ignores the known and damaging long-term effects of idleness on mental health, personal dignity and confidence, and the self worth that flows from having a role to play.

It is most disheartening to hear many on the political left who are meant to represent the working classes – the emphasis being on working and not class – adopt wholesale the Zero Covid-esque mantras of those who want to shut the economy down.

PUP, which must be paid for by tomorrow’s workers, is not the answer. Parties on the left who say it is do so purely for political reasons: whatever the Government says, they must say the opposite. People Before Profit, unless, of course, it is political profit.

It must be possible to fight off the current virus upsurge without putting so many people out of work and destroying entire sectors of the economy. Other European countries, such as Denmark, Germany, Italy, and others, seem to be less afraid than us and more together, and are striving to find a better way.

We should join that effort, in true solidarity.