I've made plenty of criticisms.

-Student nurses pay
-Insufficient protections for renters vs mortgage holders
-Argued for base-rate increase in social welfare
-Improved ringfencing of nursing homes needed in future pandemics

No response is perfect, ours has been excellent. https://twitter.com/hipster_enda/status/1248337093975293953

For every point made "defending" the Irish response, there is a counter-argument.

I believe our social distancing has seen the vast majority complying and the decreasing R0 of transmission supports that view. You could counter that with a story of people on beaches.

I believe the timing of Govt measures on school and pub closures when transmission reached a threshhold was almost perfect but leaning towards too early. Drastic measures too soon lead to lockdown fatigue and actually spikes the infection peak.

I think they got the timing right.

I believe the early period of testing where we completed 4,800 tests in 2nd week of March was crucial in breaking chains of transmission. Some argue we tested too widely but ultimately we isolated younger people who had the virus.

It likely delayed & lowered our infection peak.

I believe our healthcare service hasn't been overwhelmed once in 42 days. We haven't seen warzone-like scenes at all. People were being treated in tents in NY and car parks in Italy.

We've actually got a high amount of spare non-ICU beds and overflow facilities like CityWest.

I believe our mortality rate of 4% (for all that it's an imperfect comparison) isn't terrible when you look around at 12%, 12%, 10%, 11% in the likes of Spain, UK, Italy, Holland.

It's a nasty virus that kills a lot of people, nowhere in central/western Europe is escaping death.

And that flawed mortality rate comparison depends on the amount of tests conducted.

Less tests, higher rate.

But what people fail to appreciate is more tests early (like Ireland did) also pushes the quantitative mortality rate down. We got after the virus early, less died.

It's not just "we have a lower mortality rate because they tested less".

It's also "we have a lower mortality rate, because testing early saves lives".

Those first 2 weeks in March represented an incredible push on testing, we were faster off the blocks than most countries.

6,632 tests completed by March 16th, 292 cases, median age of case 44 years old. At that stage, 20 contacts to trace for each case.

The practical result of that early testing drive was isolating 200+ younger people who could have infected incredible amounts of people.

I believe it's highly likely if we didn't get all those testing centers up-and-running so quickly, and tested so widely early, we'd have double or triple the cases and deaths *by now*. I base that speculation on patterns I see everywhere else that was slow to test.

There are a number of vital lessons every country will learn from the pandemic.

Government's everywhere will analyse PPE stocks & just-in-time supply chains. How do we avoid bulk-stocking low-shelf-life PPE that can go obsolete but secure access quickly during a demand surge.

How do we more quickly ringfence institutions most vulnerable. Nursing home clusters have devastated the UK, Belgium, Holland, Spain, US. Our nursing homes have suffered, too.

It's not just PPE or testing shortages that lead to those clusters, hand hygiene is a root factor.

The Irish response =/= The Irish Government's response.

They can lead but it's the people who spread a virus. Our early actions, as a people, weren't gripped by enough fear of previous pandemics (like Singapore, Taiwan). Next time, we'll be afraid enough on day 1.

None of it has been perfect.

But as a nation, I believe we've coped and are coping with this. I believe the spirit we've shown, the sense of unity and national pride - while understandably slow at first - has ultimately been excellent.

We've stuck together. That's my opinion.