Mick Clifford: Delivering zero Covid the scientific equivalent of populist politics

ISAG experts cannot come to terms with the fact that they were wrong — they appear to still believe that we are all doomed because we didn’t listen to them.

Social distancing helped to reduce cases of Covid but ISAG's big idea of achieving zero Covid was doomed to fail. Picture: Brian Lawless

There was some good news this week on the accursed pandemic. The Bloomberg Covid Resilience Rankings has Ireland at number one. The rankings measure 12 different data indicators such as virus containment, quality of healthcare, vaccination coverage, and overall mortality. It isn’t a definitive judgement, but it does suggest this country is at a stage where things are going relatively well.

The ranking is a fillip for the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet), a government that didn’t stray too far from Nphet’s advice since the Christmas disaster, and the major efforts of people at large to pull together.