Even before 'Golfgate' exploded, last week was the first critical test of the Coalition's handling of Covid-19. Cases soared to a five-day rolling average of 96 a day and the country's growth rate was fourth-highest in Europe and rising. Fledgling ministers mulled over key decisions on the restrictions advised by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) to contain new outbreaks.
xplaining the divergence in what the Government recommended and what Nphet advised required nuanced messaging. How come over-70s could go on holidays (according to the Taoiseach), but should not stay in hotels (according to Dr Ronan Glynn, the acting chief medical officer)? How come no more than six people are allowed at indoor events or parties, but 30 children can sit together in school classrooms?
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly unwittingly became the face of Covid confusion by insisting the six-person indoors rule applied to art galleries, while his Government said controlled, indoor arts spaces were exempt. Eamon Ryan, the transport minister, acknowledged the confusion and then added to it by saying the Covid-19 test-and-trace system was "caught off guard" by the recent surge in cases - a claim the Health Service Executive (HSE) has disputed.
The confusion unfurled against a backdrop of rumoured differences between Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and his successor as Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, about the Cabinet's decision-making processes.
Was the Government guilty of mixed messaging? As if to answer that question, the Oireachtas Golf Society held an anniversary dinner last Wednesday night for 81 guests - including a Cabinet minister - at the Station House Hotel in Clifden, Co Galway, against the spirit and apparently the letter of new public health restrictions ministers had approved the previous day.
How did the Government get its messaging so wrong?
According to Professor Paddy Mallon, an infectious diseases consultant at St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin and professor of microbial diseases in UCD, the root cause could be the apparent vacuum where a clear government strategy on Covid-19 should be. "What we're seeing now is what happens when you don't have a clear direction to follow. And we need to fix that. I think we need to fix that as a country very, very urgently."
He added: "The best messaging is aligned to a clear strategy."
At the start of the pandemic in March, the message was simple: flatten the curve. Now there are competing ones. Do we live with the virus, keep the country open, imposing restrictions to contain local outbreaks as they happen? Or do we emulate countries like New Zealand and eliminate the virus, which effectively entails shutting down the country for a period, favoured by many but not all scientists and academics.
The Zero-Covid Island group believes that Ireland can bring Covid-19 to "zero cases per day in between four and six weeks, and then begin a cautious return to normal life".
"There's a perception that going for zero-Covid-19 policy will cause irreparable economic damage but if you live with the virus the economy can in some way flourish," said Prof Mallon. "And I don't see an example around the world of any economy flourishing by taking an approach of living with the virus. So that's a perception that I think is not actually based in reality."
Those countries that cope best with the virus are those that have adopted a "zero-tolerance" approach to the virus, according to the professor. "Places like China, South-East Asia, Australasia and New Zealand, where even though some cases have got through, society is working far more normally.
"The question needs to be asked: if that [elimination of the virus] is too difficult, is what we're doing at the minute any easier?"
Prof Mallon added: "What we're actually seeing is the economy is being held back but at the same time we are seeing a resurgence in cases. So nobody is winning."
The lack of a strategy has led to an "incoherent approach" and consequently "incoherent messaging".
"We just need to get it clear and start to move forward, one way or the other, whether it is [moving] towards this maximum suppression strategy of Covid zero or living with the virus, which means there will need to be systems in place to enable that to happen."
That means surveillance, swabbing, testing and contact tracing. "Our biggest weapon against this virus is a well-resourced test, trace-and-contact capacity that just needs to be kept ready and waiting for an eventuality such as what's happened in the last week," he said. But it, too, has been dogged by mixed messaging.
In May, Cillian de Gascun, chairman of the Expert Advisory Group and director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, suggested that mass testing of the population was the plan. Targeting 100,000 tests a week for six months would help get "a handle on" the virus in the community. That did not happen.
The authorities are instead serial testing in meat plants, nursing homes and direct provision centres - a plan unveiled earlier this month, a week or so after the outbreaks had already seeped into communities.
Last week, Tomás Ryan, an immunologist at Trinity College Dublin, suggested the test-and-trace system was falling apart. The HSE's Paul Reid responded with a detailed press conference on testing at which he insisted it was working well.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has repeatedly stressed to nations the importance of public trust in the fight against Covid-19. Without public trust, the first-line defences against Covid-19 of social distancing, hand hygiene and mask-wearing fails.
And key to building public trust, the WHO says, is transparency, and it is "particularly important at times of high uncertainty".
Given the damage inflicted on public trust by the body politic in recent days, the need for transparency has never been more important.
Catherine Murphy, the Social Democrats TD for Kildare North, last week called on Nphet to release more detailed information on where exactly outbreaks are happening.
"The public deserve to be told if there is actually any suspected transmission at matches or on public transport so they can better understand the rationale behind the decisions being made," she said. "Public support for these latest measures will evaporate if the science does not underpin decisions."
Her point was illustrated in a strident press release from the GAA calling on Dr Ronan Glynn and Nphet to present the evidence that informed their recommendation that all sport in Ireland revert to being held behind closed doors.
Nphet is shy of publishing information that carries the remotest risk of identifying someone. So it releases categories of where outbreaks occur - whether in meat factories, direct provision centres or nursing homes or in communities such as Travellers and Roma, who have been vulnerable to the virus.
The Korean Centres for Disease Control - regarded as a world leader in virus control - publishes detailed information on transmission sites on its website. As with most countries it is experiencing a surge in cases, but publishes details on where they are occurring.
Last week's data included a "nightlife venue in Gwangju", a Guro district call centre, a fitness/sport facility in Cheonan, a "family in Busan" and a Starbucks in Paju where a total of 58 cases had been confirmed. It published details of an outbreak in a Prugio pre-school in Seoul.
Dr Pete Lunn, head of the ESRI's behavioural science unit and member of the behavioural sub-group that advises Nphet, said people are "really struggling" to understand the nature of this current spike.
The sub-group has not studied the demand for detailed information from the public, he said.
But its research shows that "the whole understanding of where the chain of infection might have come from and what the story is, is really important to people's judgments and their understanding", he added.
While accepting the need for confidentiality, he said it "ought to be possible to present a narrative of how the virus has travelled, with specific examples of typical community transmissions".
The Oireachtas Committee on Covid-19 is due to hear from the health minister, Dr Glynn and health officials on Wednesday. They will face a barrage of questions on their handling of the spike in cases and whether opportunities to contain outbreaks of the virus were missed.
A fundamental question as far as committee chair Michael McNamara is concerned harks back to Prof Mallon's point: what exactly is the Government's strategy?
Mr McNamara said: "What is the objective? Is it to get to zero cases? And if it is to get to zero, what can we do when we get there? How do we remain at zero unless we continue an indefinite lockdown?
"I do note that Paul Reid said during the week that we need an economy to fund our healthcare system. At the moment, I don't think we have an economy that can fund the healthcare system that we previously had, much less the healthcare system we now need."
The Government is once again asking the public to buy into a concerted national endeavour to control the virus, said Prof Mallon. "We can't keep on going back to the population to recover a mess than has originated because we are not addressing the root causes."
