The UK response - Part II - read OP

Testing is down but not enough to cover the drop in cases.

Big drop in the north too today

24,950 today down from 39,950 last week.

The danger, however, is that remaining restrictions here, while flattening the curve (a good thing) will also have the effect of delaying the peak, so it might be into September and schools and colleges opening. This would have implications for removal of remaining restrictions.

It could be that the impact of the Euros and the lead up to the final accelerated cases before the relaxing of restrictions. This was reflected in the sudden uptick around that time.

I didn't think that the cases would drop off so quickly but it is promising in terms of vaccines/natural immunity among the population.

Surely the UK experience suggests that Ireland can avoid a peak at all. Presumably it is it beginning of the effects of herd immunity which has resulted in the decline in cases in the UK (don't know what else it could be). If that's the case, it is vaccinations which have built up immunity in the population, not virus spread.

The less than 1m cases in the last month are a drop in the ocean compared to the more than 37m people fully vaccinated. Even with several potential super-spreader events (Euros) and vaccination rates dropping off, daily cases barely exceeded daily vaccinations in the UK for a day or two. If Ireland keeps the curve flattered and vaccinates plenty of people throughout August, we should be in a very good position come September.

If it were purely the vaccines causing the current drop then you would not have seen the dramatic rise and fall as the delta variant wave passed.

My view is that once a certain point is reached in vaccinations particularly of the vulnerable, virus transmission itself starts to have benefits that outweigh the costs. The advantage the UK will have over Ireland is that at the moment the virus is quickly travelling through the unvaccinated and undervaccinated population. In this way many who will never voluntarily be vaccinated will gain immunity. All this while deaths remain relatively low due to existing vaccinations.

Ireland on the other hand will still have unvaccinated people coming into autumn and, because we're still suppressing the virus, they will not gain immunity through contracting it. Therefore we'll still have restrictions going into winter in Ireland.