“Covid-19 does not care about the Battle of the Boyne…”

These were words ushered by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly in a recent Newstalk interview when asked about an all-island approach being adopted to tackle Covid-19. The irritation in his voice evident. The events over the past week will only strengthen his contempt for the Northern Ireland Executive.

His Northern Ireland counterpart, Robin Swann, claimed they were blindsided by Ireland’s ban on travel from Britain and did not see it coming. Quite an extraordinary claim given the heavy media speculation that such a ban was in the pipeline and many countries within the EU had already implemented such measures. It suggested Swann was left with little choice but to come to a compromise with the unionist parties regarding banning travel from the UK. Allowing travel to and from and the UK to remain open, it has created a funnel for people from the UK to get into Ireland.

Early indications suggest the new strain of the virus is 70% more contagious. Such a statistic of course did not stop Arlene Foster claiming that the particular strain of the virus was already on the island and such a ban on travel from the UK was not necessary as a result. You do not require a Masters in Public Health to understand that severely limiting a wave of people carrying a far more contagious strain coming into your country is a wise move. Unfortunately for the rest of us, their wisdom and common sense is being blinded by their political agendas. Such political agendas are so distant from actually protecting its citizens from the virus, one twitter user claimed that the DUP was the political wing of Covid-19.

As put by Sky News’ Ireland correspondent David Blevins “Asking Unionists to prohibit travel from Great Britain is akin to asking the Irish government to prohibit travel from Northern Ireland.” Yet, people seem to forget that inter-county travel has been banned under all lockdowns meaning travelling was essentially prohibited to Northern Ireland and vice versa anyways. A recent clip resurfaced of Michelle O’Neill saying “Leo Varadkar has demonstrated that he is completely out of touch with the reality of life on this island” after Varadkar had suggested cross-border travel over the Christmas period could be restricted. It is fair to say that the clip has aged not like a fine wine but that of sour milk.

In the midst of all this and throughout last week, we also got to witness O’Neill and Foster taking pops at one another over which of their parties had broken more public health guidelines. Seeing the two ‘leaders’ of Northern Ireland throwing paper airplanes at each other when the classroom is on fire, is always a spectacle. Turning public health advice into a political battleground is only going to lead to failure.

We all live on this one island, meaning there is a significant opportunity to actually contain and suppress this virus in the long-term as the vaccine is being rolled out. It is not a united Ireland proposition to work together, it is a common sense proposal. The virus does not give an ounce of consideration whether someone is green or orange before it infects them, so it is about time a proper all island approach to tackling the virus is taken. Because it will save lives, something which so many people have seemed to have forgotten is the goal.

“Boris Johnson Northern Ireland Visit” by UK Prime Minister is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0