 Now, economist and columnist with the Independent News and Media, Dan O'Brien, joins me now, and Professor Luke O'Neill is still with us. Dan, you've been writing and making the point that all the while, with these extensions of the lockdown, that the economy is really suffering. We're now waiting a vaccine so it's long-term damage that's been done. What are your concerns in relation to effectively government outsourcing decision-making to public health? I feel there's been an element of groupthink slipping into this that this is now not just a health emergency, it's a socio-economic emergency. The Irish economy, the world economy is heading into something that looks even worse than the Great Depression. I'd ask a question, this is about, we need to ask questions. What was worse for humanity? The Spanish flew 100 years ago or the Great Depression 10 years later? A lot of people are saying, oh, it's one or the other. Let's just recall what happened out of the Great Depression. Political collapse in many countries ultimately led to the Second World War. Now, think back, how much do we even remember? Look at your history books. How much, how many times has the Spanish flew even mentioned? Many people died. Now, I'm not saying there are simple answers. I'm simply saying that we need to start asking questions. There has been too easily that there's no trade-off here. There is a massive trade-off. Now, the area that I feel has been under looked is the issue around age. If you look at the data on who dies and who gets hospitalized, who gets sick in Ireland, and we saw this from the get-go in China, that very, very few young people are affected and it starts rising when it gets to the age of people around this table and then it goes through the roof in the 80s. Now, if, and this is the question, I've been teasing out with medics on the phone privately and we might just tease out here. I don't mean there's any confrontational way. I just think different perspectives are needed. On this massive socioeconomic and health emergency. And here's the point. If there are 3 million people in this country aged under 45, how many people have died of COVID? 14 as of now, 14. Now, what question I ask is this. We need to get to some sort of assessment of how risky it is for younger people. And if we find that it's as risky for younger people to go out and could be killed in road accidents as it is to die of this disease, let's just get that established. And if it's as low as that, then we can let younger people make a decision on what they want to be mass unemployed, stuck in their homes, not seeing their partners, not getting out and enjoying their lives. Or some may decide that that risk is too much. If we find the risk of dying from COVID is three times greater than the normal course of events of road accident. If it's five times greater, if it's 20 times greater, but let's try and establish a baseline so that we can make informed decisions. Otherwise, we are going into the mother of all depressions and God only knows what that's going to lead to. All right, let's just take one aspect to that, the age cohort. Because people have spoken about the health risk versus the economic reward in lifting restrictions. How about making it age related as we go back to work? There's no doubt, Ivan, and we know this in spades down at this stage. This is a pretty harmless disease for people under, say, 40. Mild symptoms, they get over it. Some have no symptoms at all, you see. And as Dan said, as you go up an age, it gets worse and worse. Over 60, over 70, now we see problems creeping in. And that's a fact of this disease, okay? Now, if that's the case, if you can tell somebody under 40, you've had the disease and you're now protected, that means they're now bulletproof. They could go back into the economy. And again, we need science now, Ivan, to tell us that. If you've had this disease, are you protected? Are you no longer infectious? We still don't fully know, is the sad answer to that question. If we can get an answer, that opens up the very thing, Dan, saying you could see a situation, people under 35 are allowed back in the workplace and the economy begins to recover. Yeah, because, I mean, already, we've drawn an age distinction at the other end. We said, if you're over 70, you must cocoon. We haven't said that to 30-year-olds. So therefore, can we act? Is it operable? I mean, for employers to start looking at the birth certificate of their staff? Well, I think it's essential the economy begins to come back, let's face it, through whatever means we have as soon as we can. And if it drags on for longer, things get worse and worse and worse. This is one way out. If we can show immunity exists in a younger population, let them back into the workplace again, as they do. Dan, I have been that soldier of saying, let's have an economic debate, let's have a task force rather than just public health. And the message is pretty clear. 85% people say, shut up, go away. What price do you put on life? This is a public health emergency. We haven't really had the debate. We haven't had this discussion. I know you've raised it, but most people, most people in the media haven't. There's a lot of hostility. Well, look, that's why we need to have a reason to debate. We need to look at risks and probabilities. And just one of the reasons I'm getting worried about the government response is this. And I put this to a number of medical people. Again, I don't mean in a confrontational way. Back in March, we had the data coming out of China showing exactly this, that it was elderly people. Now, as I see it, people in the medical profession, instead of looking at the Chinese data, we're looking at the TV pictures from Lumberdy. They were looking at the ICUs. And the medical profession got the fright of its life saying, this is where we'll be in a few weeks with our ICUs. And all the focus went on the ICUs. And not enough focus went on nursing homes. Now, I am not criticizing anyone. Mistakes are always going to be made in an emergency. But I put it to you, Luke, is it possible that the medical profession made a judgment error by not looking at the data and focusing too much on the pictures coming out from Lumberdy? And if they made that big a mistake in the past, what sort of mistakes are they making now? Hindsight is a great thing, right? I mean, obviously, it's a disease of older people. The nursing homes should have been protected really more quickly. They focused on the ICUs because they saw this massive surge of people ending up in ICUs, mayhem, death, destruction. That would have happened, by the way, if lockdown wasn't implemented. And yet the very place to mind would have been the older community who were... I presume they thought they wouldn't get infected in some strange way. No, but where the debate is at now? People are beating Dan and me over the head by saying, but, look, it'll be the second surge. It'll be worse than the first surge. Like, how do you respond to that? The bottom line, Ivan, is the job of doctors is to stop people dying and look after them whatever their age is. Whatever the cost. Absolutely, whatever the cost is. Your mission is to save lives, remember. And if older people are dying of this disease, you've got to protect them somehow and look after them. It's not really one age versus another as such. And I think that's a very important point to make. Just to reiterate that, it is absolutely not about one age against the other. I'm not suggesting that for a minute. What I'm saying is that older people and people who are at risk need to be protected. We need to generate the resources to protect those people and younger people. If they are at less risk of being affected, they are the people who are going to generate the resources. The difficulty, as the textor said to me tonight was, you're asking some politician to stand up that will lift the lockdown and will take a risk, will roll the dice on death. And there's no politician has the backbone to do that. Like we're media people or whatever. We're not looking for votes. Is that not the nub of this? I think it's part of it. I certainly think the last thing any politician wants to have as a legacy is somebody who has let people, made a mistake and led to more deaths. There's no doubt about that. But again, I do feel that the people who are making advising, there is too much of a focus around people with one perspective. And that has to be that medical people absolutely have to be at the core of it. But I'm saying if there's a socioeconomic emergency as well, people who understand that have to be feeding into the results. What about that? I mean, like Roshan Shawshall and others said, well, we need some national task force that yes, has an effort, but has others. Absolutely. It's a very complicated question we're debating here. If you don't know the answer to these questions, therefore politicians get scared, obviously. I mean, they ask scientists to give their opinion. I might have 50% of the data, remember, at the moment, and they want me to definitively give them an answer. And I can't do that. The answer is debate, as Dan has said, get people around the table who will have different opinions and hammer it out with these very issues and list the key concerns that everybody has. Just on the question, as an economist, can you just look at the debris and try and give me your best guess? Because a lot of people are saying, hey, cool, the jet's here. This is a temporary. It'll be V-shaped. We'll get back into action by September. And we can ride this storm because we were in good shape before. Now I'm hearing a completely different narrative. We just don't know. We're not giving PLCs, aren't giving guidance. State companies are going to run out of cash in August. And it seems a whole different ball game. Could you put some numbers on what we're looking at for 2020? Well, I haven't given up hope that we will bounce back. Like the conversation Luke and Owen had earlier about possible breakthroughs. Like these guys, as Luke was saying, there is so much effort around the world being poured into that. And if these guys can come up with a breakthrough, they can save us all. Now, if that doesn't happen, what's happening right now is the scariest thing I have ever seen. Not just in this country, but in most countries, the economy is simply collapsing. Now, economic collapse, it will make what happened in 2008 look like a blip. That is what's happening right now. And why is that not reflected in the stock market? Sure. Oh, look, financial markets are not the place you want to look. They don't have the models for it. To look at this. What we know is from simply the number of people employed is collapsing in so many places. But they are forbidden to work. It's not like the economic model, like social distancing may change, but it doesn't necessarily mean people won't want to eat out or buy clothes. Look, if the restrictions were eased, and again, it was this focus on different age groups and talking about risk for different people, how would that work? I don't know. Final question. We have a lot of over 70s stay up to watch this programme. What's the story? Can they expect any little chinkalite tomorrow to be able to get out and about? Let's hope so. What we're all thinking now, as we've been hearing today and yesterday, having me, it's not going to be good, let's face it, it's not as if we're suddenly going to be released. They have to give us a couple of things, haven't they? Just to give us a bit of sucker. And it might be a 5k walk. It might be to allow our older people out for a half an hour a day. Let's hope that's the case, because we need something to say, look, you're doing a good job. Here's your award. Here's your little biscuit now. Just keep going. I'm hoping there'll be some relief there. And a lot of people were confused because they thought it was house arrest, where it's now just advisory. So they might venture out. And I think it would do their mental health. I was shocked to see domestic abuse figures in ICU are appalling. All right. My thanks to Luke and Dan indeed. That's all we have time for tonight. Thanks to everyone who joined me tonight, both here in studio and on Skype. I'll be back on radio tomorrow and back here on Tuesday night at 10pm. Until then, have a lovely weekend. Stay home. Stay safe. Good night and thanks for watching.