Sir, – Michael McDowell is right that Ireland should never again face a public health emergency with such limited ICU capacity (“We must never repeat the colossal damage we inflicted on ourselves during Covid-19″, Opinion, April 29th). But it does not follow that suppressing transmission before hospitals were overwhelmed was a “colossal blunder”.
Covid-19 was not a trivial illness. In Ireland alone, more than 1,600 patients required ICU care in 2021. Mortality among Irish ICU patients was 28.3 per cent in 2020 and 36.3 per cent in 2021, according to figures from the Irish National ICU Audit, with many survivors experiencing prolonged critical illness.
The burden did not end at discharge: the WHO estimates that about 6 per cent of infected people develop long Covid. Deaths alone do not capture the true impact of the disease.
Nor was concern about ICU capacity a political invention. International data show mortality rises when ventilator-bed occupancy exceeds safe thresholds. Ireland entered the pandemic with one of the lowest ICU bed numbers in western Europe and remains under-resourced today. In that context, slowing transmission before hospitals filled was prudence, not panic.
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Comparisons across countries are also instructive. Contrary to what McDowell claims, western European analyses show lower excess mortality where stronger measures were introduced earlier. Sweden experienced substantially higher mortality than its Nordic neighbours in 2020, while countries such as Australia, Japan and New Zealand demonstrated that far lower mortality trajectories were achievable before vaccination became available.
The lesson from Covid is not that strong public-health measures should never be used again. It is that we should build a system that relies less on them: more ICU capacity, better surge planning, faster vaccination deployment, stronger protection for care homes and better support for families affected by infection.
In a country with too few ICU beds, slowing transmission bought time and saved lives. That remains the central clinical reality. – Yours, etc,
GERARD F CURLEY,
Professor of critical care and anaesthesia,
Beaumont Hospital,
Dublin 9
Sir, – A letter published on May 1st stated the majority of Irish people simply deferred to authority when faced with fear during the pandemic. Of course they did. The majority of Irish people trust science, their institutions, doctors, nurses, teachers and gardaí. This is one of the many reasons why Ireland is regarded as one of the safest countries to live in, notwithstanding its many problems.
While there was undoubtedly some over-reaction during the pandemic, I would hope if another one arises that people would behave responsibly and continue to trust our authorities. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK BYRNE,
Killiney,
Co Dublin
