Seeing a lot of people giving NPHET a good kicking, even Pat Spillane. I understand why people are frustrated but we need to be a small bit realistic too. There are only 4 routes out of the situation we’re in. 1. A vaccine 2. A fast, cheap, effective cure 3. Herd immunity 4. Zero

Covid Island. 1 and 2 don’t exist. 3 and 4 do but have been judged by government to be unacceptable or impossible. Fair enough says you. But that leaves us then only with the option of trying to live alongside SARSCOV2 with as little disruption as possible it until 1 or 2 arrive.

We know that what transmits the virus is human contact, so you work off the principle that less human contact means less illness and death. So to do that you have to set out your priorities, which quite rightly should be things like healthcare, education, food, sanitation. Then

In other areas you do your best to minimise human contact to what is essential to allow those things function understand that when the virus is in community and people are mixing, outbreaks are inevitable and so try to respond quickly and aggressively to outbreaks when and where

they occur. Find, test and isolate people. A type of ‘whack a mole’ scenario. NPHET aren’t responsible for direct provision, overcrowded living conditions, the state of our healthcare infrastructure, or how low paid workers are treated in factories. So for us to give NPHET a real

shitty job to do and then complain when they don’t recommend to open up the thing we want, when we want it is harsh to say the least. We all had a good laugh and tut tut at the leinster senior schools cup stuff in the oireachtas a few weeks ago but some of what’s coming out of

GAA mouths lambasting NPHET about the 200 or 500 spectators thing strikes of the same sense of entitlement and preciousness.I say this as a very proud and active member of the association. The way I see it we’re lucky to have any games at all to play in 2020 and when thousands of

Families end this year looking at empty seats at the table for Christmas dinner, I don’t think they’ll be too concerned about how many seats were empty at some club match. There are better days ahead.