On this day five years ago Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced that all schools, colleges and childcare facilities were to close for two weeks. It was the official beginning of what in Covidspeak became the Delay Period. And it was all downhill from there.
March 12, 2020, was a Thursday and I was in hospital. Nothing to do with Covid, all my own work. Visitors had been stopped which for me was an unexpected boon, but it took me two more weeks before I was able to leave under the expletive-laden warning from some doctor that I would be dead within three months.
Well, I do not appear to be, and the main casualties of the Panic were people unfortunate enough to have entrusted themselves to the care of the State or one of its contracted “care” centres. Sometimes even my instincts are correct.
It was also Cheltenham week and myself and a few old codgers who were likewise forbidden to leave or have their family collect them had been briefly distracted and even won a few bob through my Paddy Power account when the great Honeysuckle and Rachael Blackmore won the Mares Hurdle.
A year later, on March 16 2021, Honeysuckle won the first of her two Champion Hurdles. It was also the day that my father died. Nothing to do with Covid other than, like the rest of the population, his life had been greatly restricted.
He was living in Naas and had never understood why he was not supposed to go out, why all the pubs were shut, why he could not venture into town to watch matches with myself and my brother, and why there was no one at the Munster final which was played a few weeks before Christmas much to the alarm of the RTÉ presenters who had attempted – when not modelling Covid bubbles and delivering themselves of ludicrous homilies – to have the GAA championship cancelled.
We shall park all of that. The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) have published a scientific research paper on the “nationwide collective response” to Covid.
It is subtitled, ‘How Good Were They at Doing What the State Told Them To.” I jest of course, but it might as well have have been. It does, however, come with the imprimatur of the Department of the Taoiseach and “their guidance and assistance.”
The introduction states that: “The aim of the analysis presented is to derive lessons for any future situations where the Government (and society more broadly) faces a situation that demands coordinated, national collective action, in the face of a threat.” So, my imagined subtitle is not too off the mark.
Of more interest to those of us wary of what the State might use as an excuse the next time, the data underlying the research is from the Social Activity Measure (SAM) which recorded “people’s everyday behaviour in detail” during those wonderful times. I should add – before some of you start to refashion headwear from the shiny kitchen roll – that this was not a secret operation. It was based on a voluntary online survey of 1,000 people every week.
Which probably makes it biased towards the compliant part of the population as many of us would no sooner have taken part in their survey than we would shell out for a TV licence or change our pronouns. On the other hand – despite the bluster from lads who profess never to have worn a mask nor taken a jab – those of us who refused generally to conform were a minority. So, the sample can be taken as representative.
You don’t believe me about the compliance? Well, at the end of February 2023 4,817,602 people which equated to 91.2% of the population had taken a booster, never mind just one or two jabs. “We” – excluding those of us who refused – were deemed to be the bestest vaccine takers in the whole of Europe.
So, do not be expecting that when they decide that racism or climate change or disinformation or something requires another “nationwide collective response” that there will be another Easter Rising. (That is a bad example, because of course those lads were deemed to be a tiny unrepresentative minority of naysayers too. And they were. They were right, but not popular, at the time at least.)
Back to the science. The report found that “humans are able to cooperate on a massive scale to achieve collective outcomes,” and furthermore that “Overwhelmingly, cooperation was voluntary, with only a limited role for legal deterrents.”
Basically, the vast majority of the population passed with flying colours and did as they were told.
The report found that the key to mass compliance was the setting out of “simple explicit rules.” But just as important was that these be “consistently applied and communicated.” This was where the relentless state and mainstream media propaganda came into play.
That aspect was explored, and indeed exposed, by Gript in regard to the role of Kinzen – and was underlined by the massive extent to which ALL of the mainstream media from the heavy hitters to the local county weekly and Glockamarra FM1984 was hugely funded by – and hence dependent on – the state.
The meat of this ESRI paper then is found in analysing how successful that propaganda/communication process was.
There is reference to how important it was that most people internalised what they were being told to do, that the penalties for refusing to do so were made clear, and that those who refused to comply were “othered.”
The authors do not employ that term of course but the isolation, ridicule, and silencing of critical voices was central to the success of the “collective response.” Fear – while “an unpleasant mental state” – had a part to play.
The Social Activity Measure charted the shifting response to levels of fear, how “tiresome” the restrictions were, acceptance or otherwise of the restrictions, the coherence of the restrictions, confidence in the state approach, the chances of being caught breaking rules, and perhaps most importantly of all: “To what extent do you think other people in general follow the recommendations from the Government to prevent spread of coronavirus?”
There is a lot of data presented and it is interesting to observe the various changes and perceptions over time according to levels of risk and other factors. The authors conclude that the most effective tool in acceptance of the restrictions had been the communication of the number of cases. Put simply, the more frightened people were, the more they complied.
They appear to be happy that the restrictions and the manner in which they were communicated were a success and that once this was effective that “the COVID-19 pandemic shows us that the large majority are more likely to cooperate voluntarily and, to a substantial extent, to self-police the rule.”
Which means that you can, given the proper control of the channels of communication, get most people to do what those in control wish them to. Of course, sometimes that might be for the best. It is up to each one to adjudge whether that was true in relation to Covid.