Professor Anthony Staines:

Covid caught every country on Earth on the hop. The virus is different from influenza and all of our pandemic planning had been focused on a recurrence of the influenza virus. We managed to avoid our health service being overwhelmed, which was not guaranteed when we started. That was an achievement. We managed to bring the rates of viral infection down to very low levels by the beginning of June. Again, that was not guaranteed, but it was done. The area in which we probably made the greatest mistakes was that of nursing homes. I am the chairman of the board of St. Michael's House, which is a large service for people with intellectual disabilities.

Within hours of hearing about Covid, we were making plans to keep our residents safe. I am ashamed to say that it never occurred to me to think about nursing homes until many deaths had occurred in the homes. I do not think anyone anticipated, as Professor Heneghan indicated, that this virus would prove so lethal to older people.

In terms of what we need to do now, our biggest weakness still is the test, track, trace and isolate function of the HSE. This has improved beyond all recognition but it has been scaled back over the past few weeks as the number of cases fell. As cases are bouncing up again, it is clear that we will need a permanent solution to testing, tracking, tracing and isolating. We are not doing enough tests yet but we have the capacity to do that. I am aware that there is work going on in the HSE as I speak to increase the capacity for case tracing Covid. I find that very reassuring.