The government should cancel all pre-emptive measures relating to the coronavirus. The health system should stick with treating sick people and giving public health advice.
The coronavirus is twice as contagious and twice as deadly as the flu, left unchecked it would kill about 2,000 people per annum in Ireland. That is not additional people, that includes many people who would die of other causes within the year.
Case study. My mother is in a nursing home, she is well over 90. No one can visit her. She does not understand why her relatives have stopped coming to see her. Her ability to communicate will decline with the lack of daily visits. (When she was left unvisited for 6 days before Christmas there was a marked decline). There is no indication how long this will continue.
If Coronavirus got into the nursing home maybe 30% of the residents would die, my mother likely among them. But her last months would be as happy as they could be made, now she probably feels abandoned.
The coronavirus is twice as contagious and twice as deadly as the flu, left unchecked it would kill about 2,000 people per annum in Ireland. That is not additional people, that includes many people who would die of other causes within the year.
Case study. My mother is in a nursing home, she is well over 90. No one can visit her. She does not understand why her relatives have stopped coming to see her. Her ability to communicate will decline with the lack of daily visits. (When she was left unvisited for 6 days before Christmas there was a marked decline). There is no indication how long this will continue.
If Coronavirus got into the nursing home maybe 30% of the residents would die, my mother likely among them. But her last months would be as happy as they could be made, now she probably feels abandoned.