Will it ever end?
Like everyone else, I found out that the grueling level 5 lockdown is likely to be extended to early May (9 long weeks from now) via a newspaper interview. Or, more accurately, via twitter where people were rightly critical that the Taoiseach didn't have either the courtesy or the common sense to share such a significant piece of news in a more carefully managed way.
Media have been reporting that, in an effort to soothe the worries of Fianna Fail backbenchers, Michael Martin has made himself available for more media interviews. “You have all asked for interviews at different times and I have facilitated all of you. I mean I have now, let’s be straight about that,” he said at a press conference last Friday.
What they maybe didn't consider is that a blitz of media interviews where you give slightly different answers contradicting members of your own government is not the best way to communicate critical information in a fluid environment. Nor do they want to acknowledge that most of us have spent the first part 2021 stuck in our homes, in part due to the government's decision to defy NHPET advice in favour of a "meaningful" Christmas.
I live alone. I've spent the last 11 months almost entirely alone. I've seen friends when it was allowed, but otherwise it's been me and these four walls. It's been tough. January was the toughest month - the cold weather, the dark days, the devastating fatality numbers. But I had March as the light at the end of the tunnel. I thought there'd be some, small easing of restrictions then. I told myself that even if the tunnel is long, it is not indefinite. It will end. I didn't imagine the March date, by the way. I got it from Leo Varadkar. I know things are fluid. I know everything depends on NPHET's numbers and how hospitals are coping. I've supported the restrictions knowing the potential devastation the virus could cause. (Half a million dead in the States, this harrowing look at Italy's obituaries section from last Spring) But, 9 additional weeks of lockdown shouldn't be communicated via a newspaper interview.
The pandemic has been horrifically difficult for almost everyone, though we all experience it in our own ways. I'm struck by how little attention is paid to those of us who live alone, who've endured almost a year of near total isolation. I’ve previously written about how the Covid-19 pandemic will lead to a loneliness pandemic.
According to the CSO, about 400,000 people live alone in Ireland and 60% of them are under the age of 65. Loneliness and social isolation are not just a sad inconvenience. They are serious medical problems with potentially dire consequences. Loneliness is more dangerous than obesity and can be as damaging to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Prolonged isolation has an enormous physical toll on the body, impacting your brain’s circuitry, triggering high blood pressure and increasing the production of stress hormones.
Politicians are considered essential workers. Their daily lives don't change all that much regardless of what restrictions are in place. They decide, but it's my body (and the bodies of thousands of others) who bear the weight of these restrictions. It's me who wakes up feeling gutted having not had a meaningful conversation with another human being in weeks. Loneliness is commonly understood as impacting mostly older people, though the evidence paints a different picture. The UK’s Office for National Statistics found that young adults are more likely to feel lonely than older age groups. 40% of younger people feel lonely, compared with 27% of over 75s. Almost 10% of people aged 16 to 24 are "always or often" lonely. This was more than three times higher than people aged 65 and over. In response, the UK government appointed a minister for loneliness. Listening to the anonymous voicemails left by lonely young people across the UK provides a small glimpse of the problem. Young women in Ireland are the loneliest in the EU.
Human beings are wired for connection. At our most primal level, we seek community when crisis strikes. Forcing people to isolate themselves, while necessary from a public health perspective, will have far reaching consequences for our collective mental and physical health. There’s a reason isolation is used in torture; spending concentrated time alone over weeks and months has a unique ability to unspool a person’s psyche.
We muddle on. We want to do the right thing, to keep everyone safe. I read somewhere that one of the keys to running a marathon is to think of mile 20 as your half way point. That's mathematically inaccurate of course, but feels emotionally right. You don't want to dig too deeply, too soon.Once again, the goalposts have been moved. Instead of an early Spring , we've got to hold off until early Summer. We'll do that. But we deserve better.
