I see some discussion about the Level 3 impact in Dublin, and more broadly whether Level 3 was working nationally.

You'd need to agree on what 'working' means but I'll take a look at the relevant case rates here and try discuss if it worked.

Dublin went into Level 3 on September 18th while at a 14-day incidence of 120.9 per 100,000.

120.9 was over double the national incidence which stood at 62.4 per 100,000.

No other county was above 100.0, with Louth 2nd highest at 93.9.

14-day incidence progression for Dublin (+/- 1 week difference):

Sep 19: 123.6
Sep 20: 136.4
Sep 21: 138.0
Sep 22: 136.9
Sep 23: 140.3
Sep 24: 144.5
Sep 25: 146.6 (+20%)

Sep 26: 148.7
Sep 27: 152.9
Sep 28: 160.3
Sep 29: 156.0
Sep 30: 159.3
Oct 1: 162.9
Oct 2: 168.2 (+14%)

Oct 3: 172.8
Oct 4: 162.6
Oct 5: 167.1
Oct 6: 162.3
Oct 7: 171.4
Oct 8: 165.6
Oct 9: 163.5 (-2.5%)

Ok I'll stop there for a second.

What we see is the Level 3 measures slowing growth and showing a tremendous impact by the 3 week mark in Dublin, as the experts had hoped.

One issue is the Level 3 impact wore off and this happened:

Oct 10: 173.7
Oct 11: 174.6
Oct 12: 178.4
Oct 13: 180.9
Oct 14: 185.4
Oct 15: 194.1
Oct 16: 198.6 (+21%)

Oct 17: 201.8
Oct 18: 224.6
Oct 19: 232.3
Oct 20: 239.1
Oct 21: 242.6
Oct 22: 253.3
Oct 23: 257.7 (+31%)

Now lets look at Ireland, from Level 3 onward (October 6th).

Oct 6: 116.4
Oct 7: 124.4
Oct 8: 128.2
Oct 9: 134.4
Oct 10: 150.4
Oct 11: 158.5
Oct 12: 167.8 (+44%)

Oct 13: 177.3
Oct 14: 190.7
Oct 15: 206.7
Oct 16: 217.9
Oct 17: 231.6
Oct 18: 251.0
Oct 19: 261.8 (+48%)

Oct 20: 279.2
Oct 21: 291.0
Oct 22: 302.5
Oct 23: 306.1
Oct 24: 302.9
Oct 25: 307.5 (+10%)

So first of all, just like as in Dublin, you can see at the same 3-week point the Level 3 impact starts to show in a big way in slowing the growth rate.

Level 3 does a great job at temporarily slowing down the epidemic, that is pretty clear from the numbers.

But if you project Dublin's experience on to Ireland, you would see this with Level 3 alone:

14-day incidence per 100,000:

November 1st: 370.0
November 8th: 481.0

It's easy to forget we were as low as 3.0 per 100,000 in the summer and infection levels are over 100 times higher today.

The Dublin experience is Level 3 on its own wouldn't have been enough to significantly reduce cases, just slow the growth rate for a period.

For the moment, we have clearly & thankfully separated ourselves from the trajectory witnessed in Northern Ireland, Belgium, Czech Republic.

Belfast and Dublin were neck-and-neck on September 17th.

Today:

Belfast: 1,053.2
Dublin: 256.9 https://twitter.com/Care2much18/status/1314455706746204160?s=20

The clear difference between the outcomes of Dublin and Belfast since September 17th was simply Level 3.

The restrictions imposed on Dublin came at a fairly low 14-day incidence but they prevented the exponential growth seen in Belfast, who didn't act until it was too late.

Overall I think what all of this shows, in Dublin and elsewhere, is this virus is extremely resilient.

France looked to be getting on top of it but now look, they're quickly back in the pits of despair.

The combination of Level 3 and Level 5 is aimed at preventing that.

Time will tell but the optimistic outlook is that Level 3 has slowed it sufficiently, so that Level 5 has the maximum chance to work.

Peak Level 5 impact will kick in around November 11th, so touch wood...

A total guess: it will work because our experts know their stuff.

And more relevantly I believe the overwhelming majority of Irish people are conscientious human beings.

It's easy to lose sight of that when you see lads in shebeens with kegs, but we've a lot of good eggs and not many bad ones.

So that's the other reason for optimism :)