Paul Hosford: A week when public health message got lost

Paul Hosford, Political Correspondent looks at the dramatic sequence of events following the return to work last weekend of Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan

Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health; Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health; and Chair of NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group (IEMAG), and Professor Philip Nolan, leaving Government Buildings, earlier this week after a discussion with the leaders of the three government parties concerning the recommendation that the entire country be placed under a nationwide Level 5 lockdown to combat rising cases of Covid-19. Picture: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie

In the earliest days of these strange, uncertain times, much of the public was in search of a constant.

As the pandemic raged around us and the nightly numbers added more and more people to the names of those who would never get the send-off they deserved, it was the Chief Medical Officer who provided an unlikely totem.