Covid-19: Weary nation faces further lockdown into April

Frazzled working-from-home parents of primary-school children rejoice - your four-to-eight-year-old little angels/terrors will be their teacher’s problem again from next week.

The perennially anxious mothers and fathers of Leaving Cert students can also celebrate as their teens will be back in their classrooms from Monday as well. And many pre-schoolers of non-essential workers can go back to their creches from March 8th.

But what’s in the Government’s ‘The Path Ahead’ plan for everyone else?

The answer is almost six more weeks of Level 5 lockdown – at the very least – as the current strict Covid-19 measures are not due to be reviewed again until April 5th.

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Ireland could face similar Covid struggles next winter, Government warns

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Making the announcement Taoiseach Micheál Martin tried to keep a worn-down public’s spirits up insisting “the end is truly in sight” and pointing to an acceleration of the vaccination programme that would see 80 per cent of adults get their first dose by the end of June.

However, the Government’s plan also cautions it may not be all plain sailing in the bid to reopen the country and recover from the pandemic.

Pat Leahy, Jennifer Bray and Jack Horgan-Jones outline in our lead story how there are warnings in the document not only about the grim financial situation facing the State, but also about the future path of the disease.

There are suggestions the extra spending brought about by the pandemic will have to be rolled back as the vaccination programme continues and the country reopens. The plan also warns of "real risks" surrounding the challenge of controlling Covid-19 next winter even with the wonder jabs that should be in most arms by then. See the full story here.

If you’re a restaurant or pub worker, a musician, a cinema usher or a builder – there was precious little in the Government’s announcement to tell you when you will be off the PUP (the Pandemic Unemployment Payment is to be extended until the end of June) and back in work.

As we report here, the hard-hit hospitality industry in particular is not too pleased it has been left without a clear timetable for reopening.

Labour leader Alan Kelly dismissed the Government’s plan as “more of the same, with a reliance on continued lockdowns until vaccines reach enough of the population”.

Parents should still beware, by the way – the return to schools will only see all students back in classrooms by the middle of April if Covid-19 case numbers and hospital admissions continue to decline.

The mood of a weary nation listening to the Taoiseach making yet another Covid-19 address to the nation is perhaps best summed up by Miriam Lord who writes that his big speech “told us nothing we didn’t know and nothing we wanted to hear”.

She says the "once-hugely anticipated events of major national importance have become nothing more than a drab rubber-stamping of leaks, with the addition of flags and a fancy set" and not unfairly suggests the Government is a "walking spoiler alert". Read her take here.

The return to schools was not quite the only thing the Government announced last night. There is going to be a shake-up in the order of priority for vaccines. As Paul Cullen and Mark Hilliard report here, many patients with serious underlying health conditions are to be vaccinated earlier against the virus under the change of strategy.

Best Reads

Parents wondering if it will be safe to open schools will find answers compiled by Carl O'Brien here.

The legacy of failings in the cervical cancer screening service is still having an impact as Paul Cullen reports.

He outlines how CervicalCheck officials have warned an “overwhelming” lack of trust in screening programmes is causing women with cervical cancer to put their lives and health at risk with some turning to “weird and wacky” therapies and unproven treatments.

The controversy over the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes also continues to rumble on – and the issue will be back in the Dáil today. Questions were raised after recordings of the testimony of 550 survivors were deleted.

Now Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman has confirmed audio files can be retrieved from a back-up system. The Social Democrats insist the case for an extension to the commission still stands. See our report here.

Conor Gallagher has a story about how the Irish Prison Service is trying to get Facebook to remove an online group for prison officers on the basis that it contains racist and anti-Traveller material.

Playbook

Dáil proceedings kick off with the debate on the Social Democrats motion on the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes.

Expect Leaders’ Questions to be dominated by reaction to the Government’s new Covid-19 plan with Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald and Labour leader Alan Kelly both due to grill Taoiseach Micheál Martin.

Then the afternoon will be taken up with a debate on the Health (Amendment) Bill 2021, which is the highly complex legislation the Government wants passed within weeks to allow for mandatory quarantining to begin in hotels – initially for passengers from 20 countries deemed a high risk for Covid-19 and its new variants.

The Opposition is almost united in agreement that the Government’s plans do not go far enough and that all international travellers should face such quarantine.

Oireachtas Committees on Social Protection, Climate Action and European Union Affairs are among those meeting via video link in private session.