However, the situation may be even far graver. According to The Financial Times, the UK's death toll from the virus has exceeded 50,000 – almost double the official death toll. The FT's figure includes deaths that occurred outside hospitals.

The news sadly confirms the report published on hotpress.com shortly after Boris Johnson's return to Downing Street last week. As we forecasted, the figures being trotted out by the UK government were deliberately misleading – in an attempt to minimise the death toll, compared to other European countries.

There have been warnings about comparing one country to another – but such warnings have been generally emphasised by countries like the UK, where the response has been poor and testing is far lower than it should be.

Currently, testing per capita in the UK is running at about half the rate as Ireland – despite the fact that concerns have been raised about Ireland's own coronavirus testing speed.

It seems quite clear that the authorities in the UK are clutching at straws, and are unwilling to acknowledge that Government policies led directly to the extremely high death count there.

In contrast to the UK, the death tally in Ireland is more or less consistent with the information that is available in relation to the total number of deaths recorded here. According to Séamus Coffey of UCC's study of RIP.ie in the context of COVID-19-related deaths, the gap between official figures and those indicated by the RIP.ie website have closed in recent days.

Whatever reservations people in Ireland might feel about the performance of the Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan, the Department of Health and the HSE, in this regard the picture being presented officially is fundamentally truthful and accurate. In the UK, where spin remains king, it is not.

This is especially relevant to people here in Ireland, as UK policies are in effect in Northern Ireland. There, testing is also running at about 50% of the number per capita as have been carried out in the Republic.

There too, the official figures have consistently understated the number of deaths, though it is unclear by a factor of what. Is the death count, as in the UK generally, really double the figure reported by the UK government? The answer almost certainly, is ‘yes’.

All of this may be relevant to considering why there has been a cluster of deaths and a far higher number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Cavan and Monaghan. Have the authorities on the other side of the border done anything to ascertain if there is a corresponding bulge in Fermanagh (in particular), Tyrone or Armagh? Overall, to what extent has a laxer regime in Northern Ireland have contributed to an increase in cases, or in deaths, south of the border in Ireland?

By any objective view, it is clear that a consistent approach on the island of Ireland from day one would have been the right approach. That view was frustrated by Arlene Foster, as First Minister, and by the DUP and other Unionist parties in the North. It seems irrefutable that if the policies applied in Ireland had been simultaneously applied in Northern Ireland, then fewer people would have died there. It seems inescapable then that, like Boris Johnson on the so called ‘mainland’, Arlene Foster – with her insistence on following the British model of response – is responsible for significantly increasing the death toll in the North.

It is inconvenient to say this. Even many of the genuinely reputable UK newsrooms are shying away from making the point about the UK government. But it is quite clear now that Boris Johnson’s government engaged in reckless behaviour in promoting the idea of herd immunity, and a gung ho attitude to keeping the economy running, that ultimately cost lives.

It would be one thing if they had stuck with this, in a bloody-minded pursuit of a particular end-result, as has happened in Sweden – with mixed, though hardly catastrophic results. But, of course, Sweden is a much bigger land-mass that is sparsely populated in large tracts – whereas Britain is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. The likelihood that similar policies would be appropriate is slim.

Either way,  citizens of the UK, it seems, have been hit with the worst of all worlds (well, the madhouse of Donald Trump’s US aside): a vastly higher number of deaths, much deeper levels of fear and paranoia and a lockdown that will last for some time after other countries have begun to ease restrictions.