Like most people on the planet, I never imagined what would
befall our world in December 2019, and the early months of 2020. News of a respiratory
illness, a variation of coronavirus, was quickly spreading among people in Wuhan,
China. Further news came through of the authorities in Wuhan mass-cleaning and
disinfecting the city and closing off ground zero. Soon after, the area was on
lock down and movement was restricted. Within weeks people were getting sick in
northern Italy around the ski resorts. The Italian government began to close
down the major cities of the northern provinces, but this still didn’t stem the
level of the outbreak.
The World Health Organisation were monitoring the developing
situation and as the outbreak started to cross borders, national health
authorities were advising Governments that this illness was serious and immediate
action needed to be taken. The problem had worsened in Italy and it was
spreading quickly.
The WHO named this new coronavirus, Covid-19. The virus that
causes it is SARS-CoV-2. It is a highly contagious illness that affects the lungs;
and whose symptoms include high temperature, fever, and a dry cough. It was a
type of coronavirus that had not been seen before in the population. For most
of the population, people would suffer flu-like symptoms and could over it quite
well with over the counter medications, fluids, and rest. Young people might
even be asymptomatic and might not even know they have it. However, for people
with underlying illness and for older people, this illness could be very serious
with hospitalization and intensive care treatment. Unfortunately, some people will
die as a result of this illness.
In Ireland, the outgoing Government in the interregnum following
the February General Election, formed a task force to quickly study the spread
of this disease which was now becoming a global pandemic. The annual six
nations rugby tournament was underway and the minister for health on the advice
of the chief medical officer and his team advised the cancelling of the game
between Ireland and Italy due to be played in early March. This was a big decision
in that huge revenue was expected in the arrival of many thousands of Azzuri
fans. As the problem of Covid 19 continued to grow, the Italian government closed
more-or-less the whole of northern Italy. Soon, the whole of Italy was on lockdown.
Here in Ireland, it was decided to cancel the St. Patrick’s
Day celebrations and people were asked to stay away from the cities. As the
spread of the virus continued, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, himself a medical
doctor, visiting Washington DC for the traditional St. Patrick’s Day greeting
with the U.S. President, made a big announcement. He said that the Government was
to close all schools, colleges, and childcare facilities, until March 29th,
where it will be reviewed. Over the St.
Patrick’s Day weekend, footage emerged of revellers in close contact in pubs
and bars in Dublin city centre. It caused widespread annoyance especially as
people were asked to ‘social distance’ themselves from each other as the virus
spreads by close human contact. Some pubs took the initiative to close first
but the government decided to order all the pubs and bars closed on the St.
Patrick’s weekend. Thousands of punters travelled to the U.K. for the
Cheltenham festival and the pictures were shared all over the media and social
media of stands full of people which also provoked a lot of anger.
From the word go, when the risk of this virus spreading into
Ireland was very likely, we were advised to wash our hands very regularly,
cough or sneeze into our elbows or into a tissue and dispose of it, and to
avoid touching our face. We were asked
not to shake hands or embrace people. The prevailing advice was to keep at
least 2 metres apart from each other and to maintain a physical distance from one
another. Going shopping has been an experience during this time as shoppers are
required to stand apart on markings clearly displayed on shop floors and walls.
Staggered numbers of people are only allowed into the supermarkets and screens
have been erected between the staff at checkouts and desks. Many people are wearing
facemasks and latex gloves while out and about and remaining a physical
distance from the next person. The advice is to presume that other people are
carriers of CV-19.
In the last two weeks (late March) the Government announced a
further set of measures which saw everyone being advised to stay at home with
the exception of those who were ‘essential workers’ Gardaí are on checkpoint
duty at many points all over the city to make sure that only essential workers
are going to and from their place of work and no one is just out for a drive. People
are allowed to take daily exercise so long as it remains within two kilometres
from our homes and we can go out for essential shopping outlined in Government
guidelines. All citizens over 70 years of age and all those with underlying
illnesses must not go outside their homes and must remain ‘cocooned.’ Again,
this is because it is too risky for any of these citizens to be infected with
the coronavirus.
With the very high rate of contagion and thus the massive strain
on our health service, larger numbers are falling sick and needing hospitalisation.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) the Department of Health, and the Government
put out the call, Ireland’s Call, in
early March for ‘all hands on deck’ such was the projections for this illness.
They invited all Irish medical professionals to come back from abroad to work
in the Irish health service. The call was responded to generously. The hope is
to ‘Flatten the Curve’ by controlling the level of contagion by insisting all
people remain at home and apart from one another. We are all being encouraged
to “Stay together, by staying apart.” By trying to control the amount of people
getting infected by Covid 19 and requiring hospitalization or intensive care
treatment, our health care services don’t therefore become overwhelmed.
Today, at the time of writing (Easter Weekend) at a press
conference the Taoiseach, the Chief Medical Officer, and the Minister for
Health, and the Minister for Education announced a further period of three
weeks where we must all stay at home, to stay in lock down. The Dept of
Education and the state examinations commission have put back the Leaving
Certificate Exams until the autumn and hope to allow the students to sit these
exams by the end of August. The central applications office and colleges and third
level institutes are put on alert to make provision for this when they accept
graduates for college places.
From early March, anyone who had been exposed to a person
tested positive for coronavirus, was advised to go into self-isolation for a
period of two weeks. In effect, they were to avoid any contact with other members
of the household and to keep to their own space, their own room and their own
bathroom. If they became symptomatic, the advice was to call the GP and await a
call back for an appointment at a time when no one else would be in the
surgery. Alternatively, staff would come to your home dressed in full hazmat
suits reminding one of astronauts preparing to enter the launch pad for
countdown. They would take a sample from the back of the throat and the nasal
cavity. Some days later the results would show that a person was either
negative or positive. As has been said, given how contagious this Covid 19 is, a
positive result meant continuing strict self-isolation and channels of
communication set up with the GP. Fluids and over the counter medication and plenty
of rest will make the difference if a person already has good health, However,
older people, those with underlying health problems, and for example respiratory
issues could be in serious trouble.
I am writing these thoughts and I stop to think after every
few sentences. Obviously, when writing, I’m checking a spelling or looking at
the construction of a sentence. I also look over a few lines to see if what I’ve
written makes sense. Before it comes out from inside me, it tends to make
sense, and it tends to be a good idea. When its down on the screen, sometimes it’s
a different matter and what before would be torn up and binned, is nowadays
deleted. However, I am looking at what I’m writing and I’m also remembering recent
conversations I’ve had, while observing a physical distance with people. Most
of the world is in the same situation. Nations, cities, societies, communities,
neighbourhoods, and families are all asked to stay indoors to handicap this
novel corona virus. Is it a dream we will wake up from? Who would have ever
thought that something like this would happen in our lifetime and bring the
world to a standstill? And yet, it is not a dream, the nightmare is very real and
surreal that I’m writing these lines. All sorts of people are using their
social media to urge us to stay at home and stay indoors. A-List Actors are
taking to Twitter to rally people to adhere to the guidelines. Some are using
their social media platforms to report that they’ve been tested and found Covid
19 positive. Then, they are checking in to update us as to their progress. The
British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has had a rough ride with Covid 19,
including hospitalization and even a stay in intensive care. Thankfully, he has
been discharged and is on the mend in the country residence of the PM at Chequers.
Closer to home, some prominent radio and TV personalities have contracted Covid
19 and were publicly off the air and self-isolated for a period. Taoiseach, Leo
Varadkar re-registered with the medical council as a doctor and has decided to
give some time each week to the medical response to CV-19.
Covid 19 it is a cheeky little blighter who we hadn’t met
before winter 2019. A tiny thing, a fraction the size of a full stop (.) at the
end of a page, it can pack a punch and it has spread itself with lightning
speed across all five continents. Covid 19 has infected more than a million,
made many thousands very sick, and many people have died. In the midst of our isolation, we have communicated
with each other on various social media platforms. Up to this, some had become worried at the
level of use we have made of our smart phones, tablets, and screens, and their effect
on our psychological wellbeing. Yet for now, our virtual presence has been a
life saver and a source of sanity for us. We are not encouraged to go and visit
our families, and so occasions like St. Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Easter,
all passed with no gatherings except on WhatsApp, Zoom, Skype, and Facebook
Live etc. Perhaps hardest of all to see and experience, watching older parents of
adult children greet their relatives from the hall door while the grand
children speak to them from the garden gate or outside the living room window.
It’s like were in a dream – or a nightmare.
As church, early on, we were curtailed in having groups
gathered for Mass and religious services. Again, we were required to observe
physical distancing from each other and have no close contact in the church.
Initially, we were restricted to not more than 100 people in the church. As the
virus escalated around Europe, and especially in Italy, Spain, and France,
seeing their experience, we knew this this was coming here. Communities, provinces,
and whole regions closed. People were told to stay at home and only allowed to go
out for groceries and medicines. Soon, entire countries shut down. Our church
has been closed since the second week of March and in a sense, we have spent
the weeks of Lent confined and the last few weeks in a kind of lockdown. Pope
Francis was seen walking alone through deserted streets of Rome to call to some
churches, including the Church of San Marcello, to venerate a cross which was
paraded in Rome during the Black Plague of 1552. He asked that this same cross be
brought to the Vatican for an extraordinary ‘Urbi et Orbi’ Blessing on March 27th
before an empty and wet St. Peter’s Square. Here the Holy Father prayed that
this storm would pass with Jesus in the boat with us. “Like the
disciples, we will experience that with him on board there will be no shipwreck.
Because this is God’s strength: turning to the good everything that happens to
us, even the bad things. He brings serenity into our storms, because with God
life never dies.” ( Pope Francis – Extraordinary moment of prayer. St.
Peter’s Square. 27th of March 2020)
Many of us have celebrated Mass online via webcam and on
social media. We have heavily used our online outreach in a very successful way.
I believe that many people have been consoled and strengthened in their fear,
confusion, and isolation. Here, in Priorswood Parish, we have had an average of
200 people logging on to our daily Mass on Facebook live. It has been a powerful
illustration for me of our solidarity and support together via a small smartphone
camera leaning on a shelf aimed towards the little altar in our empty day
chapel. Here, thanks to our smartphones and tablets, no virus can hurt us
because while we are physically apart as we are told to be and rightly so, we
are all together. We all have a powerful need to connect and to not feel alone.
But in this time, we really need to reach out to see who is out there, and we
need to do the same and be connected so as to not feel so isolated.
In the past, before 24-hour news channels, we would wake up
to bad news or we would have the television on and there would be a newsflash. The
editorial dept in newspapers would hold the front page and wait until very late
into the evening based on the headline they would want to carry. The natural
disasters, the wars, and the famine seemed to be happening far away. We
certainly had sympathy for communities perpetually stricken by poverty. Over
the years there would be appeals for aid for huge populations in developing
countries on the brink of starvation. NGO’s and aid agencies here and in other
western countries were on the ground trying to bring relief to the suffering
despite huge difficulties. When we were growing up, during Lent each year, all schoolchildren
got our Trocaire box to put money into to support the Irish Bishops aid agency.
As teens in the 1980’s, my generation will remember BBC
journalist Michael Buerk’s reporting of
the Ethiopian Famine and the harrowing television pictures coming through in October
1984. We were all were shocked and horrified by the sheer size of the disaster
that was unfolding. This time it was coming into our living rooms during each
news bulletin. Boomtown Rats front man Bob Geldof, and Ultravox lead singer Midge
Ure outraged by what they saw, met up and wrote a song. They imagined how most
of us would be celebrating Christmas in the west. They called their song ‘Do
they know it’s Christmas? The song powerfully asked the question, do the starving
millions know its Christmastime at all? Quickly, they set about rallying many
recording artists in the U.K. to come on board and share the vocals and the instrumental
arrangements. Pretty much all of rock and pop royalty came on board. In late November
1984, the song was recorded and filmed and was released under the name Band Aid
made it number one in the music charts for Christmas. It inspired many
recording artists across the world to do the same for famine relief in Africa.
Notably, Michael Jackson, Lionel Ritchie, and producer Quincey Jones wrote “We
are the World” and many recording artists in the United States and Canada came
together under the umbrella of USA for Africa. This too went to number one. In
the summer of 1985, Bob Geldof still reeling from seeing the suffering of millions
in Ethiopia began to arrange a huge concert for famine relief. On July 13th,
Live Aid, the ‘Global Jukebox’, would be a concert featuring the biggest music
artists in the world, all performing for free. It was broadcast via satellite with
the first gig in Wembley Stadium, London, from 12.00 noon to 6.00 p.m. and then
from J.F.K. Stadium in Philadelphia kicking off when the London broadcast was
over. Millions of pounds and dollars was pledged by ordinary people all over
the world.
We all remember where we were on 11th of September
2001 when the United States was attacked on its own soil in New York, Washington,
and Pennsylvania. Thousands of people lost their lives almost before our eyes as
news corporations blanket reported the horror live on our television screens.
It was just before smartphone technology and yet we all received SMS text messages
from family and friends to turn on our televisions to see the eerie footage of
the iconic twin towers of the World Trade Centre burning and collapsing
following two aircraft crashing into them. As the years passed, terrorist
attacks, wars, large scale violence, and dictatorships being ended would be
seen live on 24-hour news channels as reported by embedded journalists wearing
flack jackets and helmets. In the 1990’s when Iraq was still insisting it was
prevailing against the allied attack, the bombs were exploding and raining down
on Baghdad live on our television screens. We have since seen the dramatic still-photos
released of the moments surrounding the capture Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin
Laden.
Our world has become smaller and the ability to travel easily
from one place to another has meant that thousands cross frontiers every day
and travel into different countries. Travel has been revolutionised by the low
fares and no-frills airlines which has dispensed with in-flight cooked meals, compulsory
overnight stays in cities, and larger airports, all to save money. What we have
now is cheaper and even free flights (if you book very early) to smaller
airports on the outskirts of cities, and even some forty or fifty kilometres
from the city you want to fly in to.
The easier it is to travel, the more people want to fly all
around the world and therefore the bugs and viruses will come along for the trip.
In the space of two months, Covid 19 crossed continents with relative ease and
by the time the host arrived at the destination, he or she had infected much more
people than if it was influenza and as we now know, the fall-out was and is
huge.
We are seeing some easing of the lockdown restrictions in
Spain these days (Easter Week) and other countries are continuing to enforce
lockdowns, there is a danger that a second wave of coronavirus could come about
if countries become complacent.
In Ireland, nationally, our movements are restricted until
May 5th and the Government will monitor the coronavirus based on the
guidance of the Chief Medical Officer. I imagine there will be a staged and
staggered easing of the restrictions as the summer goes on. This is very difficult
for people as businesses have closed, jobs have been lost, and in a short space
of time, a recession has taken a stranglehold of our economy and indeed the world
economy. There’s no way the Government would tolerate this kind of economic
recklessness where overnight pretty much everything has closed, and people are staying
at home and applying for emergency social welfare unless we are in real danger.
And we know thousands have got sick and many have become critically ill and
sadly, a large number have died. Again, I stop and look at the words I’ve
written and I’m shocked and yet we’ve been in this situation for several weeks.
We have gorged ourselves on more and more news of Covid 19 and
then got tired of it. Broken hearted people on our timelines have implored us
to stay at home as they have reported a loved one’s sickness and even death
from Covid 19 and now they are unable to go to them to say their good-bye’s. I
have said prayers in crematoria for small groups of family members laying to
rest a loved one because they are all not permitted to go due to the
restrictions on group gatherings.
But we will get through this. We are getting through this. We
are making the most of it and encouraging each other as we go along. We have
seen it in other countries. People standing on balconies and singing to each
other during lockdown. Police singing and dancing for people in neighbourhoods.
I’ve seen posts on social media, people doing videos for their friends, and
celebrities recording videos and singing from their own homes.
We see children singing to their nana and grandad from the
bottom of the garden. I’ve watched friend’s dad’s drive their kids in convoy
past a friend’s garden to wish them a happy birthday because they can’t get together
and have a party. We’ve downloaded Zoom and Tik Tok to contact family members so
we can all see each other in real time and at the one time. We have seen Aer
Lingus flying their Airbus A330 aircraft from Dublin to Beijing and back laden
with medical cargo and pilots offering to fly the jets for free in response to
a great national effort. We have lit candles and also applauded front line
staff on our streets.
There has been community bingo games in flats complexes in
Dublin city. On Twitter, the Minister for Health promised a small boy that the
tooth fairy will be able to visit him, despite the restrictions, to leave him
money for the tooth that fell out. He also promised that the Easter Bunny had
Garda clearance to deliver Easter eggs to kids all over the country. An
anonymous donor left €500.00 in a shop in Baile An Fheirtéraigh, west Kerry to
buy every child an Easter egg. I’m sure there are similar examples of kindness
across the country and the world.
This too will pass. We will all be together again soon. In
the meantime, we must do what we’re told and trust the medical and expert advice
and they will guide us through this period. As we have been doing all along, we
salute and respect our nursing, medical, and care staff putting their health
and their lives on the line. We are grateful for our front-line workers who
will keep the machinery moving while we are asked to stay at home. Our
Emergency workers, Ambulance, Fire Brigade, Gardaí, and others are people we
owe a debt to as even in normal times, they work when we are off. I am consoled
that the best minds in the world, medical, scientific, and research
professionals and students, are working day and night to find an answer to Covid
19 and to find a vaccine and they will.
We have journeyed together through Lent in the darkness of
this pandemic and we have arrived at Easter time. I recall the encounter of the
two disciples on the road to Emmaus and how Jesus comes up and walks with them
although they don’t recognise him. Eventually, their eyes were opened when he recalls
to them why the Christ should suffer. They finally realise who he is at table
in Emmaus. As it hits them, they can’t contain their joy and even though they
said they were tired, they find a new energy and they hurry back to Jerusalem
to share their good news. The disciples there also have encountered Jesus themselves.
“Then they told their story of what had happened and how they had recognised
Jesus at the breaking of bread.” (Luke 24:35)
Good news can’t be contained, it needs to be spread, and it has
to lift us. We pray that with the help of the risen Jesus, we pray that this
will pass, and that we will continue to find ways to connect with each other
from our isolation until we can soon be together again.