Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Another figure, more like two or three days, has been suggested because people think Covid is a cold and take paracetamol and so on. Dr. Kelleher's figure, 24 hours, about which I am not sure, is a day. We are aware that the turnaround time from referral to a result is 2.2 days. The most recent turnaround time from a result to tracing in the HSE's report for the past week is 3.8 days. That gives a total of seven days from symptoms to contacts being traced. All the indications are that the optimum time from symptoms to 80% of contacts being traced is four days. On that basis, the performance falls very far short of what is required to ensure a testing and tracing system is effective. I would like the witnesses' view on that. Do they accept a period of four days is the optimum turnaround time from end to end?