At an emergency media conference tonight, the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced the introduction of new lockdown measures, which will see the tightest ever restrictions on personal freedom in the history of the State being introduced in Ireland.

The media conference was conducted by the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the Minister for Health Simon Harris and the Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tony Holohan, who made a series of statements – following which they answered questions from the journalists who were present.

The message coming from the three – widely separated – podiums was a stark one. The language used by all three of the most senior figures in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic was in many ways conciliatory. The essential ambition was to bring the citizens of Ireland on board for what by any standards are draconian measures.

Dramatic new restrictions on personal freedoms were being announced.

• In effect, no one is allowed to travel to work, with the exception of a very small list of people or occupations whose work is deemed essential. These will be announced shortly by the Government.

• People have been instructed that they must stay at home, except in a small number of exceptional circumstances. These include shopping for essentials; making unavoidable visits to care for children or elderly relatives; and once a day exercise, which must take place within two kilometres of an individual’s home.

Never before has a complete lockdown of this kind been imposed in this country. However, as Dr. Tony Holohan explained, the view taken by the Department of Health is that it is vital to act now to stop the spread of the virus in the community. He emphasised that this is the primary purpose of this extreme new raft of restrictions.

Both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health explained the purpose of the lockdown in similar terms.

However, a look at the way in which the disease has spread suggests that there is another key issue for the health services – one which is at the heart of the decisions taken by the Government, which are based entirely on the recommendations of the Department and its Covid-19 advisory group.

During the course of the media conference, reference was made to clusters of infections. These have taken place in particular in nursing homes and places of residential care. And it is these clusters that have placed an unexpectedly high level of pressure on the health system.

The capacity of the system to provide intensive care is very limited – to an extent that will probably surprise many Irish people. The demand for this care has escalated significantly over the past few days. And the fear is that if no changes were made to the existing lockdown measures, then the speed of the increase in the demand for intensive care facilities might end up swamping the system.

The department will also have been acutely aware of what has been happening in Italy and, latterly, Spain. There, the numbers requiring intensive care have surged dramatically. For Ireland, the inference is unmistakable. If the most serious sufferers can be given intensive care treatment, they have a realistic hope of surviving an extreme case of Covid-19. But if the system is overwhelmed, then they will die.

A further vital factor relates to the number of health care workers who have tested positive for Covid-19. There are two issues here that are of huge significance in the battle to bring the disease under control.

The first is that it is vital to try to minimise infection among health professionals. It is possible that a more direct intervention early in the arc of the contagion might have produced a different result. Were health professionals, who had been on holiday in Italy allowed to go to work when it would have been better to have placed them in isolation? Should flights from coronavirus-ravaged places have been limited or ended sooner?

The answer to these and other important questions will only be established in a full review of all of the circumstances which contributed to the spread of Covid-19 in Ireland. But that does not affect the need for radical action now.

The second issue is that these health care professionals are needed in the frontline battle against the virus – and therefore making sure that they are protected to the greatest extent possible is of vital importance. And that is one of the central reasons why the new intrusive lockdown can be justified.

During the media conference, the issue as to how the Garda Síochána might enforce the new restrictions was raised, The Taoiseach acknowledged that it would be difficult. But new powers have been given to the Gardaí and the emphasis tonight was on the fact that they will use them if and when it is necessary. There are real civil liberties issues at stake. But right now, no one seems to have the appetite for addressing these.

As has been the case at every stage during this extraordinary process, the authorities struck the right kind of tone in making the announcement. They praised Irish people for the efforts they have made to date. They thanked them for co-operating in what is an emergency response to an unfolding disaster. And they asked for more...

The hope is that these latest measures can limit the brutal extent of the losses – and that ultimately lives that otherwise might be lost will be saved. In particular, however, you sense that what the Government – and the Department of Health, who are really running the Covid-19 crisis strategy – want, more than anything, is not to be in a position where the hospitals, the medical staff and the health system have to choose who to attempt to save and who to allow to die – simply because the resources are not there to do anything else.

With all our hearts, we have to hope that what they are asking of people over the next two weeks – and as the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Minister for Health Simon Harris said, it is a lot – will be enough to turn the tide.

Clearly, they are buying time to make more intensive care units available. But most of all, the hope is that the spread of the disease can be curtailed.

Staying in small, essentially family-type units is central to that effort. The effect on people’s lives will indeed be dramatic. People living on their own will feel the loneliness and the isolation more deeply. No one knows how damaging the economic devastation will become. The psychic wounds, for all of us, may take a long time to heal. But it is the lesser of two evils.

Or that, at least, is how it looks right now. There is no choice involved any more: we stick together and follow the health advice. Or we risk an even bigger catastrophe.

Expect to hear more on – and from – the lockdown on hotpress.com over the coming weeks.

– The Hot Press Team