"The whole thing was baffling, tbh."

Viewers tuning in to last night's Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ were left puzzled following a segment which featured a "Covid time capsule". In the controversial segment, a box decked out in a biohazard theme was brought out to "mark the moment". The time capsule intended to serve as "'Something that will remind (viewers) of the pandemic and the times we’ve all been through as a country." The show said: "Some of these items our guests may not like to see for a while." Over on social media, viewers expressed their confusion at the segment, particularly given the fact that the pandemic itself isn't over. One Twitter user wrote: "Why are we acting as if it's all over?" Others felt that the segment was out of touch considering the grief that so many have endured over the past two years. On social media user tweeted: "Not one item recognising the grief of so many families. Covid and all the the non Covid families alone in their pain. Not one item recognising the frontline trauma endured by healthcare workers..." A third tweeted: "The whole thing was baffling, tbh." Another shared: "That won't age well." A fifth person wrote: "It's not over just because Government have lifted restrictions. We may be in the eye of the storm." The segment follows the Irish government's lifting of the majority of Covid-19 restrictions. Yesterday, however, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly warned that we may be seeing more variants of the virus in the coming months. On RTE’s This Week, Minister Donnelly said: "The infectious disease experts community that I’m speaking to, and the virologists, say, look, we could have more variants of concern. "We could have mutations of Omicron, that may be more severe, so obviously we have to keep an eye on that."