RTE Prime Time viewers were left fuming after last night’s segment on Ireland’s current method of coping with the second wave of Omicron.
Fine Gael Politician, Martin Heydon, joined Miriam O’Callaghan in the studio to discuss the future of Ireland’s Covid approach.
Mr. Heydon insisted that the public should adhere to the common sense approach of wearing masks in crowded settings, but that the government had no intention of re-implementing mandatory rules.
He told Miriam: “So the plan pretty much is to stick with the advice as there is at present in terms of wearing masks in congregated settings.”
To which the RTE presenter responded, “But no mandatory mask-wearing?”
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Heydon explained: “No government ever wants to be in a position where, during the pandemic, we were restricting people’s liberties by passing legislation that did that.
“The advice from the Chief Medical Officer is that because of our highly protected population from the administration of the vaccines” restrictions don’t need to be implemented.
“We know ourselves you know where people have symptoms, do an antigen test and where it’s positive, self-isolate,” he continued.
Asked whether or not it was the right port of call to remain restrictions-free amid pleas from the HSE over staff absences and overcrowding, Mr. Heydon said: “No because the advice here is very clear for people, and we know when we’re in congregated settings, when we’re on public transport, when we’re in health settings we should be wearing a mask, both for ourselves and others, either to stop us spreading or catching the virus.”
Miriam insisted that if masks are not mandatory then people aren’t going to bother with them, to which he said: “Well I don’t necessarily agree, I don’t believe we need to go back to that level of dictation to the general public.
“The public know that we are going through a wave and this is putting the pressure on systems, but we’re also in that transitionary phase of this pandemic and that requires us managing this in a different way, away from those emergency mandatory measures.”
Following the segment on Thursday night, viewers were entirely against the current approach to slowing the spread of the virus, as one viewer said: “That was a poor performance on Prime Time. It's the right decision to bring back mandatory mask-wearing now.
“It's in everyone's best interest to do this now. Stop playing politics and act. Living with Covid requires a flexible approach to action.”
Another said: “They cannot admit that it was a mistake removing mitigations!! School children get a night off homework but are asked to do a good deed!
“The same deed could lead to spreading the virus! Many pupils are not present in school to get homework in the first place.”
A third wrote on Twitter: “There are no words to describe his lack of understanding of Covid-19. No wonder the Covid is spreading.”
A final viewer wrote: “It’s frustrating that there is no logic behind any of the snapshot decisions that have come since the beginning of this pandemic.”
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