My apologies to my early readers, but I have felt compelled to make quite a few changes to my original draft. I hope it reads better now.

I'm hardly surprised, given my criticism of the Times,  that the Irish Times didn't publish my letter today, and think it unlikely it will be published tomorrow.

Its the sort of topic that dates quite fast and will be overtaken by whatever decisions are taken by the health advisory group on the lock-down, post May 5th.

My money would be on some minor easing, after Varadkar moved to reduce expectations today, perhaps combined with more testing at ports and airports.

But overall I am quite optimistic that community spread has been suppressed, apart from some clusters mainly in nursing homes. Hopefully we will see substantial easing by June.

New cases identified - the peak on 15 April relates to probably or suspected cases unverified by tests which occurred over previous weeks

Hospital and ICU daily admission totals

Deaths per day - the peak on 24th. April represents suspected or probable deaths due to Covid unverified by tests which occurred over previous weeks and was added to the totals in line with new WHO guidelines

Index of Frank's Diaries