Exiting the lockdown and allowing the social and economic life of the country to reopen is a gamble for the Government, but one it has to take.

Yes, the numbers of infections will begin to rise again in the coming weeks as a result of the increased social interactions allowed by the easing of restrictions.

It is a long way to the week before Christmas, when the Government wants to remove the ban on home visits, and it is possible that a grim-faced Tony Holohan, barely suppressing the urge to holler “I-told-you-so”, will be reporting several hundred cases a day by then.

That’s the vista that keeps people in Government awake at night.

Yet there is no choice but to reopen.

I say this for three reasons. Two have got to do with the costs of lockdown, and the third is because it is now clear that the second wave of the virus is considerably less dangerous than the first.

To combine all those reasons, I think that even though we may be faced with several hundred cases a day for a period in the second half of December, that may be a price worth paying.

The most significant thing that happened this week is that the Government, quite deliberately and carefully, exerted its authority over public health experts. As a result the strategy is changing.

It is an important moment.

Full column here https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/pat-leahy-government-right-to-exert-its-authority-over-nphet-1.4421593