The problem, very simply, is the way that the public’s psychology has been warped. We have been so shell-shocked by “case numbers”, so taught to fear “a rise in cases”, so bombarded, daily, with the anti-covid message that we have come to equate the virus with the grim reaper himself. We are at the stage now were many of us, apparently, view the virus as a malevolent and ingenious actor, capable of escaping and evading any defences we erect against it, attacking us with new variants, and acting almost as a conscious entity.
There is nothing, of course, that those of us who see through all of this can do about it. Family members of my own, to my consternation, advocate continued caution. Some friends worry we are opening pubs too soon. The attitude, when informed about other countries, is that those countries are taking a big risk, and only Ireland is being sufficiently cautious. It is an attitude that pervades Government – but make no mistake, it is also an attitude that pervades society.
Which makes you wonder, really, whether opening up will ever be an option. After all, when the public believes en masse that the restrictions are the only thing stopping Covid from killing thousands of us, the restrictions themselves will always be self-fulfilling. If there is no wave this winter, killing thousands, it will be because the restrictions saved us. The argument will always be that lifting the restrictions risks disaster. It is another example of something that has been rampant throughout the pandemic – the unfalsifiable claim. Those of us who oppose the restrictions can never prove to our friends that they are unnecessary, because our friends simply say that low numbers in hospitals and mortuaries are thanks to the restrictions.
This has long stopped being about science, and has instead been adopted as a form of national religious observance. It even has heretics. Those who would maintain restrictions through the winter can, and will, always accuse those who disagree with them of being reckless with other people’s lives. They justify their own position as one of responsible caution. “No harm in being careful”, and so on.