Simplest & most effective way to end hospital crisis is to reintroduce mask mandate – but government won’t budge on it
"THE public health advice to me at the moment is not to move to mask mandates."
Those were the words of Health Minister Stephen Donnelly on Tuesday as a “perfect storm” of Covid, flu and RSV threatened to cripple the entire hospital system.
Donnelly, who was nowhere to be seen over Christmas (and we all need a holiday, right?), eventually surfaced to take a tour of the packed corridors of Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital and offer an empty soliloquy on the state of the failing hospital system.
As he spoke, some 931 very ill patients were languishing on trolleys or chairs awaiting a hospital bed — a record number for the health service.
Rather than roll up his sleeves and try to get to grips with the crisis situation, Donnelly had NO SOLUTIONS, other than to beg consultants to work weekends and say things are going to get worse.
No s**t, Sherlock.
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He blathered: “The HSE’s view today when I met them was that this is likely to get worse. We are likely to see more pressure. They don’t believe the flu wave has peaked.
“What I’m hearing repeatedly from nurses and the consultants in hospitals is that more and more patients are coming in with flu.”
Well, what the experts at the coalface are telling you must be going in one ear and out the other.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has called for mandatory mask-wearing to be re-introduced on public transport and in crowded settings as a matter of urgency.
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The INMO’s Phil Ni Sheaghdha was blunt in her assessment of what is unfolding in our hospitals.
She said: “They cannot cope with what’s coming through the door. All congregated settings — so public transport, any settings where people are congregating where illnesses can spread — should have a mandatory mask-wearing situation.”
Phil’s on the money. But those who advocate for masks are frowned upon as merchants of doom. Ludicrously.
In the absence of beds — one consultant at Beaumont Hospital, Peadar Gilligan, said as many as 5,000 MORE beds are needed in the acute hospital system — and staff to deal with the surge in numbers visiting A&E, mask-wearing would appear to be the only effective way of dampening the current flu, Covid and RSV wave.
Countless studies have shown how effective masks are at reducing viral transmission.
Research released in the US last February showed how the introduction of mask mandates during pandemic surges helped to slow the spread of Covid significantly.
MASKS HELP
In US counties with a mask mandate, Covid rates dropped 25 per cent four weeks after it was introduced compared with counties that didn’t oblige mask-wearing.
At six weeks it helped to cut Covid transmission by 35 per cent.
Bottom line, during surges, mask-wearing matters. And right now, Ireland is experiencing a surge like no other.
Covid, flu and other respiratory viruses are peaking at the same time and causing never-seen-before levels of illness.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was as wishy-washy as Donnelly when asked about the crisis in our hospitals.
Out of one side of his mouth he bemoaned the numbers languishing on trolleys as “unacceptable”, while from the other he hailed the “achievement” that there are now 1,000 more beds than there were three years ago.
“We’ve never had more resources than now,” he triumphed.
To describe Leo’s juxtaposition as trite would be an understatement, as banal as Health Minister Donnelly, who vowed: “Everything that can be done, must be done.”
The simplest and most effective thing the government can do is to reintroduce the mask mandate, but Donnelly and the government won’t budge on that.
STARK ASSESMENT
Individual freedom trumps public health, eh?
A friend’s mother, aged 87, really sick with flu, was forced to wait for more than 24 hours this week on a chair in A&E.
Three days later and she’s still on a trolley as there are no available beds.
Dr Fergal Hickey, communications officer for the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine, excoriated the government.
He gave a stark assessment of their performance on health: “They need to solve the underlying problems which we faced long before Covid, they have been going on for years. We are short of acute hospital beds.
“We have 2.8 acute hospital beds per 1,000 of the population, the OECD average is 4.3. So at the best of times, we struggle. And then when you add a stressor like Covid or influenza to the mix, the whole system falls over.
“And until and unless we actually address that problem and stop talking around it and stop effectively moving deckchairs around on the Titanic, we’re going to be in this situation on an ongoing basis.
“This will kill people. Why is this being allowed to happen? Why are old people allowed to die?"
WINTER'S HOT TOPIC
SUPPOSE there is a crumb of consolation in the fact that the days are getting longer.
Still doesn’t put a dent in the awfulness of winter.
I’m not made for Irish weather. My blood is warm and the cold is something I can never get used to.
Damned thing. Two-Jumpers should be my middle name.
What with exorbitant energy prices, it’s hard not to feel the cold all the time. Even when the bloody heating is on, the cold still invades the bones.
The Finns have the right idea. Every house and flat in Finland comes equipped with a sauna. The greatest of inventions if you ask me.
Sweat the badness of the day out of you while getting heat right through to the source.
Bloody expensive to run, mind. Especially now, with Putin running amok in Ukraine and the price of gas at levels never seen before. Summer can’t come quick enough.
DON'T BE DRY FOR JANUARY
DRY January is a concept dreamt up by sadists.
The one time of the year when a drop is most needed is the miserable, interminable, grey and cold month of January.
Who in their right mind would give up the drink now when it’s most needed?
Mad people, that’s who.
The pubs are lonely, empty, forlorn places during January.
Publicans will tell you how hard it is to continue operating in the five weeks (for January is that month when the clock is on a go-slow) after the festive period.
January becomes a time of human hibernation. We lock ourselves away and try to get through it as best we can.
But hibernating and self-flagellating by abandoning alcohol is a mix doomed to damn you to depression.
Don’t do it. Go easy on yourself. Let January melt in a fog of booze.
Cue the puritans. They’ll be on my back for hailing the healing effects of the demon drink. Which ain’t so demonic after all.
DEATH IN THE SKY
IT was one of the deadliest strikes of the war.
On New Year’s Day Ukraine fired American-made precision HIMARS rockets into a ex-school housing hundreds of Russian troops in the occupied city of Makiivka, in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian military officials said “about 400” Russian troops were killed in the barrage.
The Russians – who are notoriously slow to admit mass casualties – said 89 had perished and blamed the deaths on soldiers using their own mobile phones, which the Kremlin said, allowed Ukrainian forces to pinpoint their location.
Since acquiring HIMARS (the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) from the US, Ukraine has been able to target Russian forces deep behind the lines.
It has radically changed the war’s dynamics and put Putin and his band of murderers on the eternal back foot.
IT’S INFANTINO THE INFANTILE
WHAT an idiot. An insufferable tool. Gianni Infantino, that is.
The Fifa President, who nauseated in his white runners during the World Cup, made a fool of himself this week when he appeared to take a selfie in front of Pele’s coffin as the Brazil legend lay in state.
The Twitterati exploded in rage –and rightly so. They labelled what he did classless”, a “disgrace”, “horrible” and “disgusting”.
Another user, comparing him to predecessor Sepp Blatter – who led a corruption-hit Fifa but was cleared of corruption himself – wrote: “Thought it couldn’t get any worse than Blatter. He’s 50 times worse.”
Responding to the criticism as he tried to diffuse the controversy, Infantino wrote on Instagram that Pele’s team-mates “asked to do a selfie of all of us together but they didn’t know how to do it”.
Yeah, right.
DARTS IS RIGHT TO THE POINT
THERE is no greater sport than darts. Why? Well, there is no other sport that so perfectly mimics life.
One minute you’re up (having hit three in the lipstick), the next you’re down (after missing three on the outer ring).
Darts comes at you faster than life, sure, but it sorts the chaff from the wheat. There is no hiding place on the oche.
And you’re on your own. No teammates to gee you up when a dart fails to land where you wanted it to. You must pick yourself up alone and carry on.
This year’s PDC World Championships at London’s Alexandra Palace is rightly being hailed as one of the greatest ever. It didn’t fail to produce.
The most 180s in a championship ever – 901 – told the story of a remarkable three weeks of eye-glueing entertainment.
The final itself was a titanic tussle between the game’s two greatest stars today, pitting Dutch maestro Michael van Gerwen against the St Helens Bully Boy and great pretender to the throne, Michael Smith.
They produced the most memorable final ever, including the most incredible leg of darts ever played.
Both players left nine-dart finishes, with van Gerwen narrowly missing his effort on double 12, before Smith stepped up to dispatch his attempt with aplomb and create history.
The greatest darts commentator ever, the late Sid Waddell, after whom the World Championship trophy is named, would have been in his element. I still miss him.