Opinion

Allison Morris: We are hiding in the bunker while NHS workers are charging towards enemy fire

Drive-through Covid-19 testing.  Picture by Hugh Russell.
Drive-through Covid-19 testing. Picture by Hugh Russell. Drive-through Covid-19 testing. Picture by Hugh Russell.

In a week when the news changed not just daily but hourly, it is easy to become overwhelmed.

During the Troubles, long before rolling 24 hours news, people would have relied on their evening paper to inform them about what tragedy had happened earlier that day.

I'm often struck while researching legacy cases that at the height of that terrible time, deaths often received very little coverage.

A single report, maybe a funeral picture, but in the main the scale of violence and loss became almost normalised to a population desensitised by constant trauma.

Now each evening it's for an update on Covid-19 deaths, looking with horror at our neighbours in Britain and Europe as they struggle with the extent of the crisis.

The coronavirus crisis has been described as a war, a war against an invisible enemy, and the restrictions currently in place make this feel a very unnatural time in our lives.

During the Second World War people sent their children off to the countryside for safety. Protecting the young and the next generation was key to survival.

In this new war footing it is our old, our vulnerable, our sick that need cocooning for protection.

Caring for those who once cared for us, looking after those at risk with compassion is the ultimate measure of a society.

Social media, known for its toxicity at times, has been a lifeline for those who now find themselves shut away from loved ones.

Elderly relatives getting to grips with Facetime, Whatsapp and Zoom to get a glimpse of their grandchildren, a reminder that technology can be a wonderful privilege in such troubled times.

Threats this week against Robin Swann, a man who took on the job no one wanted in 'peacetime', are a reminder that awful people will always revert to type regardless of circumstance.

Mr Swann now finds himself working through a crisis like no other.

He comes across as a caring man, whose family know the worth of the NHS, his son born with a congenital heart defect, there is no doubting his commitment to the post of health minister, his desire to save as many lives as possible.

He deserves support, but that does not mean that we should stop all scrutiny of our politicians.

Now is not the time for hesitancy, for delaying making a decisions, looking to Westminster for approval before doing what's right or indeed looking to Dublin to save us. In Northern Ireland we've always been too subservient to other parliaments, unsure of our own abilities.

If our executive want to be taken seriously during this crisis each and every one of them need to show a capacity for independent thought.

We have hindsight, we can see what's happening in other countries, what's working and what isn't.

And the executive must harness that learning, for this is a crisis that is not going to be over in a fortnight.

This is a change to how we live forever, the new normal, a different society.

It is up to us if it is a better or a worse one.

I am heartened daily by the selfless acts of others to keep our society functioning, the food deliveries, the utility workers, the cleaners.

The frontline staff. If this is a war, while the rest of us are hiding in the bunker, they are charging towards enemy fire.

They need equipped to protect themselves above all else, they need support and they need it not just now but in the future.

We have been told that the peak of this virus is coming in the next fortnight. That's when we'll know if the message to stay at home is working.

But even in the best case scenario every number in those nightly statistics is a loved one, each one had their life ended prematurely and their family forced to bury them without the rituals and ceremony that we all hold so dearly.

A celebration of that person's life and allowing families a belated funeral service, denied to them during this time, will be an important part of our healing.

Rebuilding a society and broken economy, hopefully one not so full of greed and self interest, will be up to us all collectively.

Stay in touch with those isolating alone, if you have extra drop it off on the doorstep of someone who doesn't.

Take care and stay safe.