My article in yesterday's Indo👇
Extracts👇
Are you experiencing increased anxiety since Micheál Martin jettisoned public
health protections? Do you feel frightened on public transport when an unmasked
passenger coughs into your (unopened😬) cheezy wotsits? Do you get side-eyed for wearing a
mask and wonder, “Am I losing my mind”?
Anxiety and fear are normal reactions to dangerous situations. Clinically, anxiety is disordered if there’s no evidence to support perceived threat. Let’s examine the evidence.
Paediatrician Dr Liqa Ur Rehman, is also concerned about misinformation and tweeted some of his “mild” Covid cases last week: 8 week old with severe croup. 6 month old with respiratory and cardiac arrest requiring CPR, 2 year old with fever and prolonged convulsions, 10 year old unable to walk. He asks why masks haven’t been reinstated in Ireland to help reduce transmission, viral load and severe symptoms in children?
The INMO and IAEM
unions have written to Dr Tony Holohan asking
for the mask mandate to be reinstated warning “As of March 27, 89,432 of the
pandemic’s total 1,442,877 cases occurred within the past two weeks, meaning
6.2% of Covid infections occurred in approximately 1-2% of the pandemic’s
timeframe.”
“Hospitals are currently not
safe for patients or for staff because of the level of overcrowding and Covid
infection levels” they warned. "The public need to be made aware of why we
need them to once again step up to the plate in order to protect those working on
our frontlines.”
A code red alert that hospitals are unsafe for staff and patients has been ignored. Removing the mask mandate exacerbated the crisis yet pleas for reinstating it to help slow transmission was denied. Sinn Féin picked the wrong side.
22 healthcare workers died from Covid in Ireland. Some 6,000 are off sick with Covid and long-Covid. They risk their lives to save ours. How far we’ve fallen that our hearts have hardened to their sacrifice. When Paul Reid celebrated “Freedom day” by going for a pint, Dr Liqa Ur Rehman should have been getting his booster, instead he was covering for sick colleagues.
We are experiencing a collective trauma, the impact of which is hitting those at higher risk from Covid hardest. If you’re anxious right now, that’s a normal response to an abnormal situation. Ignore the side eyes and keep wearing your mask. They protect lives and livelihoods.
