Porfirio Diaz, the dictator of Mexico in the final decades of the 19th century and the first of the 20th, once lamented his country’s geographical misfortune thus: “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.”

The combination of Brexit and the latest mismanagement of the COVID-19 response must make Irish leaders wish their Celtic forbearers had invaded some other corner of Europe. Next door to Boris Johnson’s Britain has not been the luckiest location these last few years.

The UK had managed to get its vaccine rollout under way quickly

The latest iteration of the Conservative government’s public health policy has medical experts around the globe scratching their heads. Mike Ryan, the director of the World Health Organisation’s emergencies programme, called it “entirely morally empty and epidemiologically stupid”.

The UK had managed to get its vaccine rollout under way quickly, but has now converted this advantage into a spiralling infection surge through yet another premature reopening.

Premature reopening

There have been more cases in the UK over the last week than in all EU countries put together.

The UK was best-in-class a few months back, had the fastest vaccination rollout and has still managed to put this achievement at risk.

The latest blunder saw the reopening of night clubs last Monday without any admission controls (tests or vaccination) accompanied by a perplexing announcement that vaccine passports will be required from September. Pubs and indoor restaurants have been open in England for two months and mask-wearing is no longer mandated.

Opinion polls show that most people feel the government is loosening up too quickly

Last Monday was initially billed as “Freedom Day”, but the rhetoric has been dialled down. The daily infection count across the UK has recently been 15 to 20 times what it was when the latest reopening phase commenced in March and the public is already getting nervous.

Opinion polls show that most people feel the government is loosening up too quickly and expert virologists, with which the UK is well endowed, have been scathing in their comments.

Northern Ireland, which had been quite successful in getting incidence rates down after the post-Christmas emergency, has been a victim of the jump-the-gun policy.

it is difficult to see how the rapid rise in infection in the UK will be avoided in Ireland

Cases there have recently exceeded the daily figures in the Republic, which has a 5m population versus just under 2m in Northern Ireland. A few months back, the Northern Ireland numbers looked better, relative to population, than those in the Republic.

Given the common travel area with the UK and the open border with Northern Ireland, it is difficult to see how the rapid rise in infection in the UK will be avoided in Ireland, since the portion of the population vaccinated is still several weeks behind the UK figure. Indeed, there may also be an indirect effect – the example of weak UK policy encourages lobby groups here, with some success, to demand that the over-hasty reopening be copied.

Lives and livelihoods

There is no evidence and there never has been that premature reopening of economies has any durable economic benefit. The presumed trade-off between lives and livelihoods has been sought high and low by economists and statisticians and they have come up empty.

A wide-ranging IMF study, using data from countries around the world, concluded that an effective public health policy is also the best economic policy.

Calculations by epidemiologists suggest that the threshold for population immunity with the latest Delta variant is in the range of 85% to 90%

It is notable that the “save the economy” argument has been less in evidence in the UK during the recent reopening, as its proponents have relied more on ideological arguments about individual rights and appeals to personal responsibility.

If the figures for hospital admissions rise as fast as some of the medical experts fear, the personal responsibility argument will go quiet.

Calculations by epidemiologists suggest that the threshold for population immunity with the latest Delta variant is in the range of 85% to 90%. To reach this figure, it will be necessary to extend immunisation down the age groups. Teenagers are already being vaccinated in the US and in several European countries, and regulatory agencies will have to make recommendations at some stage about vaccinations for children.

For now, the issue is academic – there is not enough vaccine for adults, but take-up in Ireland is high and the target figure may be feasible for the autumn. Slow and patient reopening is the expert recommendation if fresh lockdowns are to be avoided.

The quote from Porfirio Diaz got a new lease of life courtesy of Donald Trump back in 2017

Some European authorities, including the Dutch government and some regions of Spain, have already had to acknowledge that they moved too fast and are reimposing restrictions.

The quote from Porfirio Diaz got a new lease of life courtesy of Donald Trump back in 2017, when he offered the following analysis of America’s southern neighbour: “You have a bunch of bad hombres down there. You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”

Happily, diplomatic relations in these parts have held up rather better.