Leo Varadkar: Ireland going 'above and beyond' in Covid-19 fight

But Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has admitted that it would “have been better” to have tested 60,000 nursing home patients and staff sooner

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has admitted that it would “have been better” to have tested 60,000 nursing home patients and staff sooner for Covid-19, but said the scale of the challenge facing the country has been extraordinary.

Speaking in Dublin, Mr Varadkar said that the frontline now in the battle against this virus is a nursing homes, long-term care institutions.

“Certainly what we're doing in terms of testing nursing homes is above and beyond what's happening in most countries. That is, you know, carrying out tests of staff and residents in all nursing homes affected and staff more generally. Would it have been a good thing if we had done that sooner. Yeah, I think it would,” he said.

“But last week and the week before we'd have massive backlog of tests, and they were tests done on people who actually had symptoms," he added.

So even if we had done sooner we wouldn't have got the test results, and that's just the reality of the situation.

“We've made sure that our hospitals have not been overwhelmed in the way that people might have anticipated a few weeks ago, and now really the front line of the battle is on long term care facilities and nursing homes where there have been a lot of outbreaks,” he said.

He declined to criticise the Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan's decision not to restrict movement into nursing homes at the start of the crisis, given the high number of fatalities in the 575 facilities across the country.

“You know I'd never be one to second guess the clinical advice the advice of our CMO, and the national public health emergency team. They made that judgement based on the information that they had at the time, whether it would have made a difference or not, nobody can say, you know, that's, that's only speculation.

"We know, bear in mind incubation period of this viruses, is, is five to 11 and a half days so you can we can work that out for yourself it's impossible to judge that,” he said.

The Taoiseach added that Ireland could be facing several waves of the Covid-19 virus but said we just don't know yet.

Mr Varadkar said that until an accurate antibody test arrives, there is no certainty as to how the virus will spread.

Responding to morning media reports that the country could face several waves of the pandemic in the coming months, Mr Varadkar said “that is probably true.”

This is a new virus. And it's a virus that we've only known about for the last couple of months, and the science on it is very uncertain.

"If you take other pandemics or other similar viruses, they do tend to go around the world in waves. Certainly the flu virus does. We see for example in Japan, where they're one of the first countries now experiencing if you like a second wave Hokkaido which is the big northern Island in Japan, which lifted his restrictions three weeks ago is now had to impose them so,” he said.

“So yes fine to speculate that this is a virus that will come in waves. That is probably true. And that would be what you'd expect.

"We have no concept of yet is how many people have already been exposed to it and we won't know that until we have an accurate antibody test, and there is no accurate antibody test yet.

"Although some companies say they may have that next month. If we get that, that'd be really useful because that will allow us to do a zero prevalence survey, which will let us know how many people in the country have already been exposed to this virus and they have antibodies to it,” the Taoiseach added.

It could be 1%, it could be 25% we really don't know until we do that study, we hope to be able to do that next month if an accurate test comes along.

"Because that affects everything you know waves of infection when most people haven't been infected already is one thing to watch waves of infection if most of us already have is another thing so that's going to be really important,” he said.

Mr Varadkar said he and the government are working on a plan to see if primary school children can return to school, even one day a week, but that plan is not completed yet.

“What we're working on at the moment is a plan that'll be ready, end of April early May. In advance of the May 5 big day if you like what we're supposed to set out is a stepwise plan, which indicates how we would reopen the country in different steps and what are the criteria that would have to be met to allow us to move from one step to the next,” he said.

“Until we have that I prefer not to speculate. I really understand that a lot of people are starting to find the lockdown and starting to find restrictions very difficult. And I'd prefer not to raise hopes or raise expectations, only to dash them,” the Taoiseach added.

What we are working on is a stepwise plan, whereby we could start to reopen certain services certain parts of the economy, and then reviewed every two to three weeks, depending on how things are going in terms of the spread of the virus.

"But I'd rather give people certainty when we have that towards the end of April early May, then to speculate on that when it is not yet agreed,” he said.

He did say that the opening of pubs and permitting the large scale public gatherings currently prohibited would be toward the end of things to come back given the social distancing requirements.