The US had three days last week with more than 70,000 new Covid-19 cases reported every 24 hours – but anybody can get on a plane in Boston or Chicago and fly straight to Ireland.
Texas was one of the worst hot-spots with 40,000 new cases last week. American Airlines has now resumed flights three times a week from Dallas to Dublin.
It’s crazy. And it makes a mockery of everything we have done together over four months through the most lethal pandemic in a century.
Our frontline workers, our elderly, the families who have lost loved ones and those that lose them in a potential second wave – do they want to see Yank tourists crowding around Grafton Street and the Guinness Storehouse, visiting the villages of West Cork and Kerry?
One American visitor who has the killer bug getting off a plane in Dublin and visiting hotels, bars, shops could infect scores of people before lunchtime.
With Covid-19 it’s not weeks or days but hours that count. So what is our new Government doing? Our leaders are basically Father Ted and Dougal, standing outside the airports with signs saying “Careful Now!”
Right now – 26 out of 27 EU Member States as well as four Schengen Area countries – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland are not allowing non-essential travellers from the worst affected countries including America.
Guess who’s out of step? The one European country you can fly to from Miami or Los Angeles (two of the worst hotspots)?
That’s right. Ireland! Or as the EU’s official page giving information to international travellers states: “Ireland does not currently apply the travel restriction”.
We are asking visitors to “self-isolate”, fill out a form letting us know where they’ll be (six or so pubs and restaurants in Dublin, a couple of hotels in Clare, maybe a stroll and a coffee on Shop Street in Galway).
Do we really think that all American visitors are going to be as careful as we need them to be? Under that idiotic, reckless, clueless clown in the White House, they have left Covid-19 blaze out of control again.
Ask some Americans to wear a mask in public and they’ll start screaming about their constitutional rights and waving their guns around (because you can shoot a virus).
The US under Trump has been a threat to the wider world in so many ways – but this is now a specific threat to Ireland.
We need to build a wall around arrivals at Dublin Airport – and get Donnie Trump to pay for it.
