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Here it is...
During Monday’s press briefing, Dr Tony Holohan, the chief medical officer in Ireland, warned against a complacency setting in among the general public.
Drawing on weekly market research conducted on behalf of the department of health, he highlighted that 43 per cent of the population believe the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic is over. The figure is higher than at any other point during the coronavirus outbreak.
“But the virus is still circulating, the risk is still there in our communities,” Dr Holohan cautioned.
The same day, confirmation of another 15 deaths related to Covid-19 took the official toll in Ireland to 1,467, with an extra 139 new cases taking the overall number of cases to 23,135.
Four days earlier, when 137 new cases were revealed, we learned that 115 of those were related to residential care homes.
The tragedies unfolding within nursing homes and other institutional settings are appalling and they illustrate how we all have a responsibility to be vigilant in protecting the most vulnerable members of our communities.
Every one of those deaths is somebody’s loved one, a father or mother, a brother or sister, a friend or colleague who is departing this earthly life in the loneliest way imaginable. We all have a duty of care to prevent such heartbreak. Period.
Notwithstanding that, we also need to explore how societies can move forward and economies start functioning once again. In that context, it was interesting to see on Thursday that just 22 new cases had emerged within the national community beyond the residential care homes.
Clearly, that’s a small sample – we don’t get that sort of breakdown every day – but, given a population of five million, it seems like a considerable triumph for Holohan, the department and the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), who have coordinated the country’s response to the crisis.
If you factor in the ten reported clusters at meat processing plants, which comprised of 566 cases, it’s reasonable to conclude that the number of transmissions out and about has reduced to a very low level.
Extrapolating and speculating
Accepting that we are extrapolating and speculating, in the context of the current numbers, Dr Holohan’s comments inevitably make you wonder – what are we waiting for?
That’s a genuine and general question, not in any way loaded or specific to horse racing, because it is unclear at what point we can reasonably expect to reopen within our economies businesses that can be undertaken safely. It’s something I’ve struggled to get my head around from the start of all this.
Once you shut down in the interest of public health, how do you ascertain when it’s safe or acceptable to open up again? Is one Covid-19 related death too much? Are ten acceptable?
To what extent is the virulence of this virus going to become established within society? It is obviously much worse than the annual flu strains, but we’ll still have to learn to live with it to some degree.
Dr Holohan’s comment on Monday followed a similar tweet he posted a day earlier. “All good teams keep going until the very end,” he said.
“They know the risks of easing off when the end is in sight. We’ve done so well this far - but it’s not full time yet! Come on Team Ireland – let’s keep the effort up until the final whistle blows.”
Similar to Monday’s quote, then, the explicit inference here is that there is an identifiable “end” to be reached, but what does that mean?
Covid-19 is not something we can eradicate from our lives, not as long as our borders are open or until a vaccine is developed, which may take years. Hopefully an antiviral will make it to market much sooner, but for the short to medium term we are going to have to find ways to life with and work around this virus.
Meta Osborne of Tinnakill Stud, a vet and vice-chair of Horse Racing Ireland, recently tweeted a link to a paper by Erin Bromage, an associate professor and immunologist at the University of Massachusetts in America.
It is a deeply insightful and informative piece of work that focused on risk and how the coronavirus spreads through respiratory exposure specifically, using graphics to illustrate the manner in which it is transmitted in various settings, such as in a restaurant or a church choir. We get an idea of how airflow affects environments, with the paper ultimately reinforcing that infections are dependent on exposure over an extended period of time.
“If you are sitting in a well ventilated space, with few people, the risk is low,” we are advised towards the end. Busy, enclosed spaces are the real danger when it comes to respiratory exposure.
“Importantly, of the countries performing contact tracing properly, only a single outbreak has been reported from an outdoor environment (less than 0.3% of traced infections),” Bromage relays.
Again, when it comes to outdoor activities, it begs the question more urgently – what are we waiting for? The virus's reproductive rate in Ireland is down to between 0.34 and 0.71, so huge progress has been made on that front. I’m not sure how much lower NPHET aspire to get it, but it’s reasonable to query at what point does the risk involved in reopening the economy and society become acceptable?
Social distancing
In indoor settings where social distancing simply isn’t possible, be it in a classroom or on a plane, surely wearing masks will be compulsory, along with improved sanitation levels, cough etiquette and hand hygiene. The taking of temperatures will also likely become routine.
In a real world sense, large classes and packed planes will constitute essential elements of our society. By contrast, many restaurants with limited space probably won’t be able to operate within the confines of the new normal. The future for pubs could be particularly apocalyptic.
Forget for a moment the specific arguments about when racing should resume in Ireland or Britain, whenever it gets the green light, it is an outdoor industry and sport that will be able to adhere to the various guidelines. One area of concern has been for stalls handlers, but pictures from France over the past couple of days show how they too can do their job with absolute minimal contact.
As for attendances, it’s hard to know what the future holds for packed stadia. Whenever crowds are eventually phased in again, capacities will be likely massively reduced.
That will impact other sports a lot more than racing, as the major events at the likes of Cheltenham, Ascot, Aintree, Galway and Punchestown are among the few occasions where space is an issue.
Notwithstanding fears in relation to – amongst other things – media rights income due to the uncertainty over the lot of bookmakers’ retail shops, racing should be able to function relatively well with reduced capacities, whereas something like snooker or darts will face greater difficulties in that regard.
Racecourses have the space to cater for social distancing requirements, albeit bars may be closed for a long time. Drinks could possibly be served to order in restaurant areas that are equipped to allow for the required space, and there could be similar outdoor facilities when the weather permits.
With the GAA, a contact sport, having ruled out the prospect of any activity on its front until at least the autumn, it reinforces the sense that there is going to be an opportunity there for racing to fill a sizeable void. That’s not to dance on anyone’s grave, but we’ll have to make the most of whatever opportunities fall our way in the months ahead.
Manageable risk
Basically, what we are talking about here is manageable risk. The risk involved in running a race meeting can be readily managed, and it’s a €2 billion industry that equates to a sizeable contributor to the economy, not least in the way of rural employment.
It falls under the department of agriculture’s remit for a reason, but, at a time when we are lumbered with an impotent government that has no mandate, political gumption is especially thin on the ground.
There will soon be seats up for grabs at a new cabinet table, so few are willing to rock the boat and racing’s self-inflicted controversies in recent years have doubtless done little for its political capital.
Nonetheless, when you consider the unavoidable destruction that will be inflicted upon our economy, it’s difficult to understand the logic of keeping any industry shut down for any longer than necessary.
For Irish racing, currently slated for a June 29 resumption, it is a situation that is made all the more damaging when the governments of our direct competitors in France and Germany have acknowledged the risk-reward ratio is acceptable, despite the coronavirus exacting a far worse toll in their respective populations.
As things stand, Britain could also succeed in getting things moving ahead of Ireland on June 1.
Only time will tell whether that reflects better on us or our various European neighbours.
