1066 and all that

This was the state of play here yesterday.

It is a hugely worrying level of cases.

I’m told that our Covid Tracker app is fit for purpose and I use it every day.

However, our test and trace efforts have recently run into problems.

My overall sense of it is that people in these positions are doing their best in very trying circumstances.

The lockdown here is now at Level 5.

No, not like that…

The infection hotspots here in Donegal shows the madness of adhering to the Partitioned jurisdictions during a pandemic.

The worst spots of the Six Counties are, unsurprisingly, in the Derry and Strabane areas.

If we had acted in a unified way on this small island at the start of the crisis, then we would undoubtedly be in a much better place apropos the battle against Covid19.

However, the leader of political Unionism in the Six Counties is a person from Fermanagh called Kelly, who doesn’t think she is Irish.

I know, I know…

Instead, Snarlene thought it made her more Bradaish if she took her lead on the Covid response from this chap in London.

On this side of the British imposed frontier, we are not without our own ignorant gobshites.

The worrying rise of the far-right in this state has been manifested in “anti-masker” demonstrations, like this recent one in Dublin.

Many of these fine folks are also “anti-vaxxers”.

They seem to be in training for the Darwin Award Olympics.

However, they also can be “super spreaders” for a virus that there is still no vaccine or cure for.

We Irish have an honourable tradition of simply ignoring laws and ordinances that we find awkward or encumbering.

Well, now isn’t the time for such a rebellious response.

Until the  Best brains in the pharmaceutical industry can deliver what we need, then we all have to work together to limit the number of infections.

In doing so, we will prevent the health services from being overwhelmed.

That, dear reader, is true wherever you are reading this.

The Google analytics thingy tells me that more souls are visiting this site than you could cram into Celtic Park, Hampden and Ibrox at the same time.

I mention those stadia because most ye appear to be in Fair Caledonia.

Dear reader, regardless of where you are, where you come from, please adhere to the local public safety rules be part of the solution.

Sadly, this being the best of times and the worst of times a few are revealing their true selves.

We are living in historical times, and generations not yet born will study what happened in 2020 and how all was changed, changed utterly.

It might appear to them as distant as the Battle of Hastings.

Even so, I do hope the message that we impart to the future is that the collective triumphed over the selfish and that science Trumped superstition and division.

I am reminded of the survival training I received many years ago.

“The rule of threes” is easy enough to remember.

My highly experienced American instructor was ex-military, and he had also worked for the US Government in wilderness areas.

 

 

He thought for a moment as the slide was up and then he added another one to that list:

“Three seconds without hope”.

Generating that precious commodity is a job for all of us.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.