Professor Patricia Kearney:

The difference is that Ireland has said that it is going to live with this virus and continue to live with it until, hopefully, a vaccine is developed sometime next year. What we are saying is that we want to eliminate the virus. That is what is being done in New Zealand. As a result, there were 104 days when people in New Zealand were essentially able to return to normal, society was functioning and businesses were functioning. The difference in Ireland is that we have this lockdown in three counties, it is unclear how long that lockdown will last and it is unclear what the target is in terms of making the decisions. It was interesting that Deputy Nolan spoke to how the decision was made to implement the lockdown. With any of these lockdowns, the hard decision is implementing them but an even harder decision is when to lift those restrictions. What we are trying to convey with this elimination strategy is coming up with very clear targets about what we are trying to aim for and thinking about how we will respond in an agile way if some cases do emerge.