Archive for Roadmap for Reopening

And so to Phase Three..

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education with tags , , , , on June 29, 2020 by telescoper

Well, Phase Three of the Great Reopening happened has started on schedule. As I walked to campus this morning I saw long queues in the street outside every barber’s shop in Maynooth. I decided to wait a few days before trying to get my long overdue haircut. It’s been over three months now.

Maynooth has quite a lot of barber’s shops for a town of its size. It also has quite a lot of nice restaurants. I noticed this evening that quite a few will be opening this week for sit-down meals rather than takeaway. I wish them well, but I think I’ll be sticking with the takeaways for a while longer.

When I got into the office to start work on the risk assessment I’m supposed to complete so staff can return to work, there was quite a lot of activity in the Science Building, including signs of various kinds being put up.

Some of the signs are bisexual bilingual:

All this reminded me of some lines from the Leonard Cohen song Anthem:

We asked for signs. The signs were sent

……

Signs for all to see.

The arrows will be put on the floor at regular intervals to enforce a one-way system around the building to allow people to circulate without bumping into each other.

I’m also expecting to be issued with tape to be used to mark some of the machines in our computer laboratory out of use, to keep users from sitting too close. I was going to remove the chairs but I don’t have anywhere to out them and we’ll probably – hopefully – need them back sometime!

I started work on the risk assessment but didn’t get it finished. I should be able to complete it tomorrow. Then it needs to be approved. Only after that will staff be able to begin routinely working in the Department. Until then, working from home continues.

Leave a comment »

Scrambled Phases

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Maynooth with tags , , , on June 22, 2020 by telescoper

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the imminent start of Phase 2 of the Irish Government’s Roadmap for Reopening after the closures enforced because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since then the Irish Government has decided that there will only be four phases instead of five, and many elements of the programme will be moved forward. For example, all travel restrictions within the Republic will be lifted from next Monday (29th June), which is when Phase 3 is due to commence. It has also been announced that hairdressers, barbers, nail and brow salons, beauty salons, spas, make-up application services, tanning, tattooing and piercing services will re-open. I find that surprising, as I find it hard to see how such services can be provided at low risk of transmitting Covid-19.

In fact I find the whole idea of accelerating the Roadmap rather worrying. I hope I’m proved wrong, but it seems to me that the Government is rushing this. There are worrying signs in Germany that the R-number is increasing significantly and undue haste in opening business may lead to a similar rise. It must be stressed that the number of cases involved in Germany  is rather small and most are confined in local outbreaks that can be contained. Nevertheless, this remains a concern.

At the moment the situation looks stable, with new cases at a very low level:

I do worry however that, since only a very small fraction of the population (at most a few percent) have been infected with Covid-19, there will be very little resistance if Covid-19 starts to spread again.

As for my own work situation here at Maynooth University, what happens in Phases Three and Four is all a bit hypothetical, because we’re still stuck in Phase One! The University management is being extremely cautious about allowing anyone back to work at all until various protocols are agreed, risk assessments carried out, and staff training delivered. It seems likely therefore that we will reach Monday’s scheduled start of Phase 3 before we are even ready for Phase 2. In practice, therefore, the various phases of the Roadmap are no longer relevant in this particular setting. I think I’ll remain the only person coming in to the Department for quite some time!

I fully understand and support the careful approach adopted  by the University, of course, and the delay doesn’t matter that much as our teaching semester is now finished and, being theorists, we can all work from  home reasonably effectively. It must be more of a challenge for laboratory-based researchers. My main concern is  I’d be very surprised if all the other organizations and businesses due to open next Monday are as cautious. The last thing we need for people to cut corners and send us all back to square one.

 

Leave a comment »

Time for Phase 2 in Ireland

Posted in Covid-19, Maynooth with tags , , on June 7, 2020 by telescoper

Tomorrow (June 8th) sees the start of Phase 2 of Ireland’s Roadmap for Reopening. You can see that, as of yesterday, the number of confirmed cases per day is small and stable after three weeks of Phase 1, which has justified proceeding to Phase 2.

Incidentally, since the Covid-19 outbreak took hold in Ireland there have been daily press briefings by the Department of Health. Yesterday’s was the last of these: from now on the updates will be twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Data will still be released every day but there won’t be a press conference every time. I’ve been following these every day for three months so this will be quite a change to the routine!

Moving to Phase 2 means that most shops will be able to reopen (subject to social distancing measures being in place), people will be able to travel much further (anywhere within your own county and 20 km into another) and there will be a limited return to work (subject to the completion of various protocols, risk assessments, etc).

For us at Maynooth University there won’t be a sudden change. Staff who can will continue to work from home (which is basically everyone in the Department of Theoretical Physics) but labs will gradually reopen for research when the necessary arrangements are in place. Other than that Phase 2 will be very similar to Phase 1.

On Friday, however, the Taioseach announced that the Roadmap would be accelerated so that Phase 4, starting 20th July will, if all goes well, be the last, though measures will be in place for some time after that.

That’s good news of course but it’s all dependent on there being no second wave. As a cautionary tale, take a look at the numbers for Covid-19 Iran:

Iran has been experiencing a second wave of new cases for some time now, and this looks set to produce more cases than the first, but this has only recently resulted in an increase in daily mortality figures:

Note the lowest number of new cases per day in Iran was just under 1000. That’s far fewer than the United Kingdom, which has chosen to undo its restrictions far more rapidly in Ireland. The number of confirmed new cases in Ireland reported yesterday was just 24; in the United Kingdom the figure was 1557. In my opinion there is a strong possibility that the UK will follow a similar trajectory to Iran…

5 Comments »