President Michael D Higgins has issued a renewed call to action in tackling the Covid-19 virus in a national address, as cases have risen around the country in recent weeks and days.
The President has urged the public to redouble its efforts to follow health advice and guidelines in a bid to suppress the virus as the country approaches “the end of six months of our shared struggle”.
1,781 people have died in the country as a consequence of the virus over the past six months, while more than 30,000 people have been infected.
The President has now encouraged everyone to renew their commitment to slow the spread of Covid-19 in a show of good citizenship: “I believe that we must now, with our schools reopened, must refresh determination to give our efforts – as the late John B Keane might put it – our almighty best.
“I suggest we do so on the basis of good citizenship. Yes, one’s personal health is most secure when there is a good following of the public health advice. But making the effort is an achievement that goes beyond the self in the protection of others.”
“Following the guidelines and the advice is fundamentally an act of good citizenship.”
Mr Higgins said he believes there is a need for "solidarity, care, compassion and kindness" to guide our collective response to the pandemic.
“We must, it goes without saying, continue to share the grief of those who have lost loved ones,” he said.
“We must share too the distress of those whose lives and livelihoods have been changed, and address the loneliness being experienced by those who have been cut off from contact with those who previously sustained them.”
The President spoke of the dangers of damaged solidarity in recent weeks: “I have mentioned solidarity as an essential value guiding us as we proceed.
“We must acknowledge that breaches of solidarity damage, and have damaged, social cohesion in combating Covid. But our righteous concerns must not be allowed to dislodge us from our common purpose. That of, by following the advice in relation to public health... we will together suppress the virus.”
