What has 2020 taught us about managing COVID-19 on the island of Ireland? Here are a few pointers. 1. To compare COVID-19 death rates North and South is to ‘weaponise’ the pandemic for the Irish nationalist cause and to collude in thinking that a united Ireland is inevitable (thank you Lord Caine). But to ask the question, ‘how does Northern Ireland compare to the UK’ or ‘in world terms’, is perfectly normal with no connotations whatsoever. 2. For COVID-19 there are ’four nations’, of which N. Ireland is one. For rugby there are ‘six nations’, of which Ireland (the island) is one. 3. With COVID-19 it is important to know the difference between ‘mass gatherings’ and ‘mass’ gatherings, especially when it comes to dishing out the blame for ‘super-spreader’ events. We are now talking about events in June, after Wave One – not to be confused with gatherings, such as the Cheltenham Festival and the Liverpool v Atletico Madrid match, which were allowed to go ahead as the first wave took off in early March. Nor to be confused with the gatherings that in September were exempted from England’s ‘rule of six’, such as Polo and hunting & shooting parties. 4. Some ‘mass gatherings’ are more legitimate than others. The Black Lives Matter protests in Derry and Belfast, for which PSNI issued 71 fines, were actively discouraged by the police. A week later (13 June), Protect Our Monuments, which PSNI intelligence correctly anticipated would be ‘predominantly, if not exclusively, from the Protestant, Unionist Loyalist Community’ (Police Ombudsman), gathered shoulder to shoulder to surround Belfast City Hall, in case anyone fancied a pop at ‘the famine queen’ (please don’t – I need to take a photo for a book). PSNI encouraged POM to proceed and ‘attended’ on the day. No fines were issued.
