Letters to the Editor: Isolate the country, imprison rulebreakers

In order to fight this insidious pandemic draconian measures are called for

Gardaí conduct a Covid-19 checkpoint on the N1 road coming from Dublin Airport during the 5km travel restrictions measures. Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

Without prejudice to the eminent work being undertaken by all those involved with Covid-19 mitigation/control nationwide, we are unfortunately not achieving the desired result of essentially getting the virus reproductive rate (R) to below 1. Until such time as that value is reached, the virus will continue to rage rampant amongst the population, with catastrophic mortality consequences.

For effective Covid-19 containment controls, we need to adopt procedures that are in place, for example, in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand — otherwise we will just continue to firefight.