Today's Indo article on Mandatory quarantine:
Highlights:
Micheál Martin claims that he had followed NPHET’s advice all along. Not so. He has persistently diluted their advice. The most important, yet under reported aspect of that advice which hasn’t changed since the outset, is that of mandatory quarantine. Instead, Ireland opted for a “careful now” approach which saw 140,000 people enter the country between 11 December and 3 January, half of whom refused to tell officials where they were staying.
On 14 January, as
reports emerged of two new Brazilian variants, the WHO’s Mike Ryan warned that some countries
could be ‘in serious trouble’ if new variants change
the rules of the game. Having
already imported the South-African and UK variants (which are significantly more
transmissible), it’s crucial that the coalition heeds this warning. According
to Science
Magazine, new evolving variants risk undermining the efficacy of the
vaccine, which makes mandatory quarantine and the swift roll out of the vaccine
absolutely vital.
Transport minister Eamon Ryan’s response has been characteristically lacklustre. Last week,
he introduced PCR testing for international travellers (something most
countries did months ago), despite NPHET warning that they’re not
suitable for use in screening asymptomatic people, such as arriving passengers,
and that they should therefore be used in conjunction with mandatory
quarantine. On Friday, RTE reported that,
since travel restrictions from South-Africa and the UK came into effect on
January 9th, some 80 passengers refused to produce a PCR test, yet were still
permitted entry.
Human rights are interdependent. Therefore, the right to freedom of movement is not absolute. Article 12(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights allows restrictions on the right to freedom of movement for reasons of public health and national emergency where quarantine is required to limit the spread of a deadly disease.
Rather than quarantining incomers in
a hotel for 2 weeks, our government opted to quarantine 5 million Irish
citizens in our homes – indefinitely - instead.
When the government finally admitted that mandatory
quarantine wasn’t illegal, they still refused to implement it. In July, Simon
Coveney said that the government had considered NPHET’s advice on mandatory
quarantine but that “we don’t regard it as an approach that makes sense from an
Irish perspective”. I defy Mr Coveney to explain how 176,839 Covid-19 cases and
2,708 deaths makes sense from any perspective?
Contrast
our losses with countries that enforced strict mandatory quarantine early on. New
Zealand: population 5m, 25 deaths. Thailand: population 63m, 71 deaths. Taiwan:
population 23m, 7 deaths.
Jacinda
Ardern shut New
Zealand’s borders in March before any deaths were recorded to
prevent the virus taking hold. She said she would not countenance herd immunity
because it risked killing thousands of New Zealanders saying, “I’m not willing
to tolerate that”. With Ireland drowning in chaos and grief, how many more
deaths is Micheál Martin prepared to tolerate before mandating quarantine?
Whether
by accident or design, Ireland’s handling of covid-19 unnervingly resembles a
herd immunity policy and criminal negligence.
Northern Ireland has much been cited as an excuse for not restricting movement on the island or between the UK. Yet, at various times in the pandemic, Wales and Scotland banned visitors from England and Northern Ireland on public health grounds. Plus, if border checks could be deployed to stop the spread of foot and mouth in 2001, why can’t it be done to protect lives in a pandemic?
Asked by the Irish Mirror who would be
responsible for increased deaths after the government rejected NPHET’s advice
in October, Stephen Donnelly responded, “The
virus is responsible”. If you accept
power you don’t get to evade responsibility.
If Micheál martin and his ministers are not ashamed of Ireland’s
death toll, it’s not because they’re blameless: it’s because they’re shameless.
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