Sir, – We have been provided with the knowledge and the tools as to how best protect ourselves. This knowledge will not simply be forgotten should anyone travel to another country.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) stated as recently as July 2nd that it “[does] not consider travel restrictions within and to the Schengen area as an efficient way to reduce transmission within the EU . . . In this phase of the epidemic, imported cases are likely to represent a negligible minority of the cases reported in EU/EEA countries and the UK, whatever the incidence in the country of origin is.”
Ireland continues to be an outlier in the EU in relation to overseas travel, despite the scientific and epidemiological assessments. The protocols exist to enable us to travel safely. A strategy of elimination rather than mitigation is unrealistic but is political at its heart. A new Government is keen to be seen as beyond reproach.
Shaming the many thousands who wish to travel, and the many more thousands whose livelihoods depend on travel, will not solve this crisis. We need better than this. – Yours, etc,
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JOE MAY,
Dundalk, Co Louth.