Dr. David Nabarro:

I will start by commenting on the numbers. Some countries were really not very comprehensive in their counting of the deaths in residential care or nursing homes, to use the Deputy's term. For example, they only counted deaths if the patient had actually been transferred from the nursing home to a hospital and then were tested in the hospital. Other countries were very careful saying they would count a death in a nursing home of somebody who tests positive for Covid if they can conclude that actually the Covid contributed to the death. Other countries have said they will count all deaths in nursing homes where there is Covid found even if they are not sure whether the Covid contributed to the death. That is what I call a wide circle of inclusion. Ireland has probably got the widest circle of inclusion of all the countries that I have studied, which may be one of the reasons there is a relatively high rate of deaths in nursing homes associated with Covid in Ireland compared with some other countries.

As far as I can tell from the analysis that I have done, Ireland moved pretty quickly on a number of issues particularly trying to get personal protective equipment, PPE, in its various forms, to the staff in nursing homes and restricting visitation in nursing homes, recognising that visitors were a primary way of bringing in the virus. Ireland, possibly, might have been one of the faster countries to introduce this. At the moment I am not thinking that there is something that Ireland has not done. I just think that one, we have got a very honest counting of numbers and two, as with every country, this has been quite a struggle but it seems that Ireland did pretty well.