Confusion and concern about the level of information provided by the Northern Ireland service on the scale of the coronavirus outbreak remains - seven weeks since the pandemic was first declared.
The difference between recording systems north and south of the border has become all the more striking during lockdown with the public and journalists in the Republic flooded with data on breakdowns, clusters, graphs and daily briefings - and even minutes of its government emergency team meetings.
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While the Public Health Agency (PHA) in Northern Ireland initially took the lead through online daily "surveillance reports" - detailing the number of deaths as well as those who had tested positive for the virus - they were severely hampered after community testing was abandoned on March 12.
Statisticians could only then provide figures on hospital deaths and those being swabbed as inpatients or frontline staff and were unable to give an insight into what was happening in care homes or on the ground.
Information on age and gender were also included on the PHA website alongside a colour-coded map of prevalence rates - which again was limited due to the restrictions on testing.
On April 19, the Department of Health took over the release of data with a much anticipated 'Dashboard' which unfortunately crashed during its rollout - but was up and running yesterday with similar data provided by the PHA along with figures on ICU admissions.
As the number of deaths in care homes began to spike in the Republic - with data emerging over Easter weekend that more than half of vulnerable care home residents made up the Covid-19 death toll - public pressure was brought on the north's authorities to release similar figures.
This information has only emerged in the past fortnight, when a breakdown was provided by the Northern Ireland Statistical Research Agency (NISRA), the organisation which is considered by many experts as the best in terms of data collation as it only deals with data from death certificates.
However, due to a time lag in the reporting system NISRA's figures are slightly behind those provided by the health service - but are still hugely reliable as they make five year comparisons and have also revealed that care home deaths account for a third of the total Covid-19 death toll.
While the north's Chief Medical Officer, Dr Michael McBride, spelt out the difficulties last week in providing a "true reflection" of the impact of coronavirus - such was the level of concern about under-reporting that health minister Robin Swann ordered officials to probe stats after only one death was recorded on a Sunday earlier this month - the limited access to data is worrying.
During a briefing yesterday, Dr McBride and Mr Swann confirmed efforts to "significantly" increase community testing.
For the sake of public confidence and in the interests of transparency, a similar approach to sharing of information must be undertaken.
