Coronavirus: Irish performance midtable at best in international terms

With the lifting of some Covid-19 restrictions this week, Ireland has moved on to a new phase of its battle against the virus.

The liberties we have reclaimed since Monday are for now meagre and tentative, with the fear of a second wave of the epidemic not far from our thoughts.

Yet how we fare from here on is to a large extent in our hands, individually and collectively. A flexible, nimble and directed approach to keeping Covid-19 in check can yield impressive results in terms of winning us new liberties and easing restrictions according to the timetable in the Government’s plan and, perhaps, even faster.

So far, our performance is midtable at best, in international terms. There is the sense of a half-defeat being wrestled from the jaws of victory. We had extra time to prepare before the virus came here compared with other EU countries, and to put in place a coherent strategy informed by the best scientific advice.

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This helped us win the battle in our hospitals, where ICUs were comfortably able to cope with the surge of cases that came their way. With the experience gained, there can be confidence that hospitals can cope even better should the virus stage a substantial return.

Yet even as this was happening, coronavirus was making its way into nursing homes and other care settings with devastating effect. Apart maybe from Canada, Ireland has the highest proportion of Covid-19 deaths occurring in care homes. For reasons that have yet to be fully explained and will require formal investigation, the disease ripped through these settings before effective action was taken.

That situation has now been stabilised, but a new challenge has arisen in meat factories. As with care homes, the problems here have as much to do with staff practices outside the workplace – arising from the sharing of accommodation, for example – as behaviours on the job.

Three controls

Governments effectively have three means of controlling the epidemic now, during the post-lockdown phase; testing and contract tracing, travel restrictions, and social distancing.

The greater movement allowed to us as we move through the phases of the Government’s plan is likely to lead to more cases, but we can clamp down on spread by ensuring rapid testing and contact tracing is in place. And, if we choose, we can double down on border controls to protect against the importation of fresh cases.

The HSE’s promise to test and trace contacts of the vast majority of cases within three days is welcome, although an even shorter turnaround time would be better. Border controls will matter more as international travel resumes and the airports fill up again, which is why the filling-in of a passenger locator form becomes obligatory from this week.

As society loosens up, we will see more cases in private homes and workplaces. We need to reduce the proportion of cases caused by community transmission, which currently account for 60 per cent of the total.

To some extent, we can lessen the risk by redesigning our shared spaces – for example, by getting rid of cramped accommodation units.

Great outdoors?

Our default advice is still to stay at home, but for the limited social interaction that is now allowed, the outdoors is the best option for the coming months. In Japan, which has one of the lowest Covid-19 death rates, epidemiologists advise people to avoid "the three Cs – Conversation in poorly ventilated, Close, Crowded spaces".

Despite the focus recently on masks and asymptomatic transmission, it is important to remember that the way this virus is passed on is mainly through close and prolonged contact, and mostly by people who have just started to show symptoms. This happens most in enclosed environments such as households, long-term care settings and high-density public transport.

Conversely, short, casual interactions are low risk, provided you keep your distance. And, it is worth repeating, children do not pose any greater infection risk than other people.

By acting smartly, we can stamp out new outbreaks quickly, rebuild the economy and even buy ourselves room to experiment a bit – for example, by getting some children back to school on a trial basis.