In anxious times, it is only natural to look for light at the end of the tunnel. As Ireland moves to a more comprehensive lockdown this weekend, that includes Leo Varadkar's oft-repeated assertion that the country's response to the coronavirus is following "very much what they've done in South Korea".

It would be hugely reassuring if that was indeed the case. South Korea remains the country where, in the words of Channel 4 News foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller, "per capita testing is the highest in the world, and mortality the lowest".

Is it really true, though, that Ireland is copying the South Korean model?

The question took on added urgency in a week when Ireland, preparing for further restrictions on movement, work and leisure to contain the spread of Covid-19, also decided to exclude from testing those who are now deemed "not appropriate" for it, urging anyone with symptoms to self-isolate for 14 days instead.

That is not meant as a criticism of the Government's change of tack, which will have been taken, as usual, on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer and National Public Health Emergency Team, bearing in mind the need to stay within capacity.

Ministers need to be able to constantly refine responses when it is scientifically necessary, without being accused each time of a U-turn by smart alec journalists.

But cutting back on the number of tests is certainly not following the South Korean model - so why say it is?

As Miller made clear on Channel 4, South Korean society did not go into lockdown as Covid-19 spread. Instead, "its manufacturers went into overdrive". More than 600 drive-through and walk-in test centres opened across the country, where people could be tested in minutes and get their results within hours by text message. Positive results were then followed up by forensic contact tracing.

Can we claim to be following the "South Korean model" if this vital part of the jigsaw is being left out.

As of midnight last Monday, Ireland had tested only 17,992 people; since then it has been around 2,000 a day. There is a backlog of 40,000 who wish to be tested, and who now probably never will be. Reclassifying their request for testing as no longer a priority may reduce pressure on resources, but it doesn't make those people go away.

The acute shortage of personal protective equipment, which has led to desperate appeals by hospitals for gloves, gowns, goggles and face masks for frontline medical staff, is another big difference between the two countries.

Again, it is important to stress it is not because of a lack of caring on the part of government ministers, who have been doing their best from the start.

The system has simply struggled to cope with the demands being placed upon it. And it still needs to be acknowledged that the number of healthcare workers who have the virus would probably not be as worryingly high if Ireland had followed, or was now following, South Korea's lead.

In Spain, 14.7pc of infected people are healthcare workers. In Italy, it is 7.5pc. In both countries, the figure is considered a national emergency.

Here, the equivalent percentage is already 23pc - but the media continues to praise the Government uncritically, as if there are no questions to answer about this at all.

There is another essential part of the South Korean approach which is not being replicated either.

"Aggressive tracing is intrusive," as Miller acknowledged. In South Korea, "quite draconian" laws are in place which allow authorities to digitally trace people through the harvesting of data from mobile phones and debit cards, and are willingly accepted by people as a trade-off for public health.

Any suggestion that this is the model which Ireland is following is patently absurd - but the Taoiseach's words to that effect have been widely echoed without question.

When he was asked last week about ministers who may or may not be self-isolating after showing symptoms of Covid-19, Leo actually replied: "I think that anything that relates to any individual's medical history or condition should be a private matter."

This is as far from the South Korean model as it is possible to get.

Here, information about the spread of the virus continues to be limited to vague geographical locations. One can only hope that contact tracing is as aggressive as the Government claims, because there is no verifiable evidence for that either.

Ireland may come to regret taking a laissez-faire approach to allowing Italian rugby fans to fly into the capital a few weeks ago, or racegoers to go off to Cheltenham without being more rigorous about ensuring they self-isolated on their return - not least because community transmission in small groups seems to be the most important driver of infection.

Even relatively minor movements of people have proved disastrous in other countries.

Estonia, for example, has more cases than neighbours Latvia and Lithuania - a difference attributed to the presence of a single Italian volleyball team at a tournament on one island in the country earlier this month.

Even Sweden - which initially tried to keep schools, bars and restaurants open as long as possible - has now banned non-essential, non-EU travel.

Meanwhile, flights are still landing in Dublin from New York - where half of all Covid-19 cases in the United States are centred.

Passengers will be asked to self-isolate but it is wholly unenforceable.

As of this weekend, Irish people are being ordered to stay at home - and they will no doubt be publicly shamed in the coming days if they don't do so - while the Government's attitude to virus-proofing the borders remains half-hearted.

It may perhaps be that the measures which people in South Korea willingly accept as a price for their safety would not work in Ireland, where intrusions on privacy cause more angst, and where we prefer to keep the State at arm's length.

Though even that may no longer be the case if the eagerness with which people here now appear willing to support harsher punishments for those who breach social distancing guidelines is anything to go by.

Either way, for the Taoiseach to keep asserting that the country is adhering to the South Korean model, when integral elements of that model are missing, should not be sustainable without a rigorous challenge to its veracity.

Opposition for its own sake to what the Government is doing would be irresponsible, but uncritical support risks being equally corrosive.

The Taoiseach did not pluck South Korea out of the air. The claim to be following that model was deliberately chosen because it has become a byword internationally for the best way to handle the spread of coronavirus.

As such, it is part of a political narrative, and the answer cannot be to lay politics aside for the duration of the crisis.

Politics, like life, must go on.