Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. De Gascun and Professor Nolan for their incredible work. Certainly the State recognises that they have given us service.

I ask Dr. De Gascun to comment on a couple of things and to leave me a bit of time to come back to Professor Nolan on a further issue. With respect to the wet markets in China, I know it is not definite that this coronavirus has come from them, but a significant risk has been identified in the Far East. Does Dr. De Gascun know if Government or the European Union are going to make any representations, in terms of trying to regulate what is going on there, or to close them down?

I know it was discussed earlier but I refer to some of the confusing messages from the ECDC and the WHO, specifically with respect to masks, distancing, and flattening the curve versus what came out in the open letter yesterday. Is there any opportunity to try to reach consensus among the senior medical and policymakers? There has been much confusion. I, as a member of the Regional Group, asked back in March for masks to be made mandatory where social distancing was not possible, and at the time that was rubbished. Now here we are talking to people about making their own masks, so one of the issues that has come up in recent days is this confusion in messaging, and we all have a responsibility to try to get behind a single messaging strategy and promote it.

With respect to testing and tracing, what is the latest on the app development? We have not heard about it, or I have not heard anything about it in recent weeks. Are we close to a phone app and something that might help us prevent a second surge?