When is this going to end? Eighteen months ago we hung on to the hope for a COVID-19 vaccine but we were also warned that one may never be found and we would just have to find a way of living with it.

Remember that? Imagine if we were still looking?

Then there was a breakthrough – an effective vaccine – and we celebrated. The end was nigh.

Who would have thought last January as the first jabs were being administered to great fanfare that almost 12 months on we would still be in throes of a chaotic pandemic with restrictions and the hospital system tested to its core?

But it seems so futile for opposition politicians and hurlers on the ditch to use the current crisis to make political hay

The job of the opposition is to man mark the Government, hold them to account. Indeed Micheál Martin, Leo Varadkar and Eamon Ryan were well able to give it wellie in their day so they should not expect anything less when in power.

But it seems so futile for opposition politicians and hurlers on the ditch to use the current crisis to make political hay. It is not international governments but rather the COVID-19 disease itself that is making things up as it goes along, dithering and undermining medical advice. Now we are being told that “ah it will take the booster to beat it.” But we just don’t know and we remain a lap behind the disease as it races ahead slaloming and chicaning its way around a course which has no finish line in sight despite many false sightings along the way. Any politician or pub bore that says there is a better way to keep cases to a minimum in Ireland during a European wide wave is the same person who will tell you that you are picking the wrong numbers for the lotto.

Indeed if we look back at all the debates, suggestions, rows and roadmaps since March 2020 to try and smother the virus, some seem so innocent in hindsight

I remember interviewing a very prominent medic in the summer of 2020 who was full sure that we could eliminate the virus “within weeks” if we followed a theory they believed in good faith was the right one to take at the time. Indeed if we look back at all the debates, suggestions, rows and roadmaps since March 2020 to try and smother the virus, some seem so innocent in hindsight.

For example, those who roared and shouted about closing the ports pointing to how great New Zealand were doing must look back with a sense of embarrassment now. We all had mad ideas which seem foolish now as the pandemic continues about its merry way.

The country is full of self-appointed medical experts including, needless to say, the anti-vax brigade. They think they know it all but they haven’t a clue. None of us do.

Now the talk is of it being over in spring, when everyone has their booster and so on and so forth

We can all make suggestions as to what NPHET and the Government should do over the next four weeks to reduce the impact of this current wave, which is rampant not only in Ireland but across Europe. But not to be flippant, COVID-19 is the electronic hare and we are the chasing greyhounds. We need to be a bit more humble in realizing that.

Now the talk is of it being over in spring, when everyone has their booster and so on and so forth. In the meantime, we can argue about this restriction verses that restriction and why we don’t do this and why we don’t do that. In all honesty, we may not be as collectively fearful as in the past but all we can do is go back to basics – wash our hands, social distance, reduce contacts where possible and wear a mask. Still, when is it going to end?

How big is your tractor?

Have we not gone past the stage of judging farmers wealth by the size of their tractors? Does this also apply to bus drivers, combine harvesters and crane operators?