Similar to @GabrielScally’s comments on radio this morning, @SimonHarrisTD gave his clearest hint yesterday that post- #covid19ireland “normality” is a good while away yet: [mini-thread]

After Dr Colm Henry told me at the weekend that the backlog in test analysis could be cleared this weekend, I asked Harris yesterday if there was a date in mind. He said it was probably a few weeks away, given challenges in labs, reagent and sampling. https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1247899316133355526

But he also said the scale of a testing regime is one of the things that will determine when ‘normality’ returns.

That’s because the virus isn’t going to be eradicated without either cure or a vaccine, neither of which is a short-term probability. The virus will remain with us.

If the virus is still in circulation the only way to return to some semblance of normality is being able to immediately identify and isolate anyone showing any signs of #Covid19 - meaning, to have them referred, tested, analysed and responded almost on the same day.

And, as Harris said, it will be a few weeks before we get to that point - and there’s an order of precedence to the finite testing capacity we’ll have in the meantime, where vulnerable categories or health/care workers are top of the queue

Long story short, it’s not just about being over the peak of The Curve or having the hospital capacity to deal with whatever Covid-19 caseload remains - it’s also needing a system that can offer instant intervention for the cases that are left. One will be quicker than the other.