“AR scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine” is perhaps the most beautiful of Irish proverbs. It roughly translates as “In the shelter of each other the people live”.
This pandemic has driven home the point we do live in the shelter of one another. Faced with a common threat, people bond together. They afford each other protection.
Or at least that’s the theory.
In truth, we are witnessing a steady growth of selfishness by the self-absorbed with zero sense of self-awareness of their responsibilities to others.
Following the announcement that Covid passports were to be phased in by the Executive, anti-vax protestors, virus conspiracy theorists and ultra-fanatics went into overdrive on social media.
Reading the online comments about Justice Minster Naomi Long and Health Minister Robin Swann was stomach-churning and beyond repugnant.
Mostly protected by anonymity, hundreds of sad, pathetic and unfathomable individuals ranted with abandon on their keyboards. They were foul-mouthed, bullying and vicious. Bitter hate-seekers with nothing borderline about their vileness.
It would be of some comfort to this writer to think of some of these social media warriors as Nick Cotton types, sitting in their Y-fronts with a bottle of WKD in one hand whilst the other taps out perverted and reprehensible messages of hate.
But they are not.
Those who spew out much of the bile towards our elected representatives are ordinary - extraordinarily, ordinary men and women.
Well-known names (who should know better) often add fuel to the flames, giving trolls a misplaced sense of respectability and somewhere to hide.
The comparisons and references to Covid passport supporters as fascists demonstrate the levels of stupidity amongst some of these keyboard fanatics. One such called this columnist a Nazi. If you did not laugh, you would certainly cry.
There is a problem with the Covid passports - they are six months too late.
And the competency of our administration to deliver glitch-free technology doesn’t do anything for public confidence. All that said, the figures stubbornly speak for themselves - nearly 60% of hospitalisations from Covid are from unvaccinated people. Drastic action is overdue.
Structural and deliberate underinvestment, a failure to recruit nurses, and a collapse in home care packages have decimated the NHS but we are where we are.
For unvaccinated people to risk overloading the NHS is reckless.
Of course, there are those who for medical reasons cannot get vaccinated - but that is a very, very small proportion of the overall population.
The outrage over the issue of Covid passports is overplayed. We have been using them for international travel to countries with more stringent pandemic controls and more importantly whose governments have penalty-driven enforcement.
Those opposing Covid passports and other protective measures seem to believe they have a right to choose the safeguarding measures appropriate to them and act accordingly. That’s not how things work in an interdependent community -living the shelter of each other.
In a democratic society, individual rights come with collective responsibilities. Freedoms do not include the right to endanger or risk the lives of others.
The hospitality industry may feel the idea of Covid passports is an additional burden but they are no more burdensome than asking customers as present to write down their names, addresses and contact numbers on sheets of paper.
Where is the data protection when those details are available to staff in multiple premises? Much better to scan details onto a secure site.
The rather mannerly Paul Frew - DUP MLA for North Antrim - has said he will never apply for a Covid passport. That’s ok, and apart from other options open to him that’s his choice. But every choice has consequences.
On social media, Frew says he’s “crazy about history” and “fanatical about the future”. If so, he should read up on Cookstown-born Typhoid Mary.
And as for the future, this pandemic will eventually pass but only through collective vigilance and vaccination.
