The acting chief medical officer’s pleading with the public to make ‘difficult decisions’ to prevent a number of Covid-19 deaths this winter.
Dr Ronan Glynn says ‘public buy-in’ to health guidance is the main defence against the spread of the virus.
He says people shouldn’t even meet family members, or go to work or college, if they’re a close contact of a case.
Another 363 coronavirus infections were confirmed yesterday. 23 counties are affected by the latest figures with 154 cases in Dublin, 40 in Cork, 23 in Donegal, 16 in Wexford, 15 in Roscommon, and 14 in Galway and Monaghan. There have been no more than four new cases, if any, in Carlow or Kilkenny.
One more death was also confirmed nationally and Dr Tomás Ryan, an associate professor of immunology at Trinity College Dublin, says more are inevitable noting “The death rate & our ICU rate & the hospitalisation rate are all increasing, this is expected as the virus is starting to make its way into the more elderly and more vulnerable population which we cannot prevent, it’s the same as the last time, it poses the same mortality risk, we don’t really know how this is going to interact with flu in Winter so it is very concerning”.
He adds the government should be aiming to get the whole country to level one Covid-19 restrictions by Christmas.
The National Public Health Emergency Team will meet tomorrow, to consider whether new measures are needed for some counties – they’re particularly worried about Galway, Monaghan, Roscommon and Cork.
All counties are currently at level two or three, but Dr Tomás Ryan, an associate professor in Trinity College, says progress is possible in the coming months.
Meanwhile, mandatory hotel quarantine for foreign tourists would help to eliminate Covid-19 from Ireland, according to a leading expert.
Dr Niall Conroy’s a consultant in public health medicine in Queensland, which has the rule in place.
The Australian state has had 34,000 fewer coronavirus cases than Ireland, despite having a similar population.
Dr Conroy, who’s from Dublin, says forcing people from overseas to stay in a hotel for two weeks, has been key “Mandatory hotel quarantine allowed us to concentrate on the cases that were actually in the community, you know rather than worrying about those cases as well as constant stream of new cases of Covid coming in from overseas, it’s worked really well for us and we’re back to a state in Queensland of relative normality, we can go to restaurants, you can go to your dance classes”.
