An abundance of caution and a scarcity of common sense.

These are the factors that are influencing Ireland’s current policy towards the COVID pandemic, in my opinion. A lack of ‘cop on’.

At present, a facts based public policy based needs to happen.

“Reasonable risks”

There are several vaccines, being used to combat the COVID 19 pandemic. Their names will be fixed in our minds for years to come like family houses in Game of Thrones as they fight for control of the COVID virus.
This week the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was [paused] in the USA and there has been concern raised about the AstraZeneca vaccine being harmful to roughly one in a million people from blood cloths. One in a million is a risk that generally, for most other medicines is
determined as a [reasonable] risk, because you have to weigh up the benefits. Ultimately asking, what serves more people than does harm?

Often cited at the moment is the higher risk of blood clots from birth control medication, people decide that it’s worth more to bear that risk than not have the use of it. The same goes for the vaccines. That said, the ECDC knew that in pausing the roll out of the AstraZeneca vaccine they would assuage the fears of those with concerns about such side effects however as we consider the speed of the roll out program and the continued damage with the lockdowns: was that worth it?