In watching the Irish covid commentary in last 24 hours there are some recurring teams, to which I’d like to offer some counter-opinions: - The Covid PCR test is fine. It’s not perfect and it’s not suitable as a screening test. But it’s v good and it works well in practice....

...-Asymptomatic spreaders are very much in the minority in this pandemic. You’d be seeing a very different pandemic if most spreaders were hidden. - Schools are not driving the pandemic (I know people hate me saying that). - Nursing Home outbreaks are a reflection of the fact...

....that you can only shield elderly people up to a point when community transmission becomes super high. Ireland is at that point. There will be nursing home outbreaks, even with strict precautions....-“Test and trace” is a misnomer. It’s “investigation and control”. But....

...whatever you want to call it, saying we need more of it instead of lockdown is wrong. Investigation and control is labour intensive and only works up to a certain point, after which you need population-level restrictions, sadly. Ireland has passed that threshold......

...-Elimination is possible in Ireland from a technical perspective. You may not think the price is worth it and there may be no political will, but those are different points. From a disease control perspective it could happen in a few months but it’s hard.....

..-Recurring lockdowns are Ireland’s plan. This is life until vaccine herd immunity is reached. Or until someone finds a better way. Lockdowns just bring case numbers temporarily. When they’re loosened, the same conditions exist that allowed cases to go up in the 1st place..

...-There is an economic cost to NOT going for elimination and living in a world of recurring lockdowns. We should bear that in mind. As my colleague @nick_eichler said, “you can have border quarantine or you can have interminable lockdowns, but you can’t have neither”.