The Tanaiste says restrictions on home visits in Dublin and Limerick is an option that will have to be considered.
The National Public Health Emergency Team has urged people living in the two counties to reduce their social contacts as cases continue to rise.
307 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed yesterday, 182 of which were in Dublin while 19 were in Limerick.
Six were in Kilkenny while Carlow recorded no further instances. (More on the figures here)
A restriction on visiting the homes of family and friends was recently introduced in Glasgow & Leo Varadkar says a similar measure could be introduced here noting “They took a decision rather than closing schools again or closing childcare again or closing businesses again that they would go really hard on gatherings in the home, that is an option that I think we’ll have to consider if the numbers keep going in that direction. What I don’t know and what I’d be interested to know from the experts is has that been effective in Glasgow”.
Despite a rise in the case numbers, the number of coronavirus-related deaths has remained low in recent weeks.
But it’s thought Ireland will start to see more deaths as a result of Covid-19 in two weeks time, if the strategy to fight the disease isn’t changed.
Professor Sam McConkey thinks local teams should be deployed to meet with people who have tested positive saying “That’s people going face-to-face interviewing people who’ve had Covid-19 and saying ‘When you were on the phone to the contact tracer is there anyone you forgot of your 14 day contacts?’ when mapping out where have you been for the last 14 days go to those businesses and say maybe you need a deep clean of that physical business because somebody was there three days ago with Covid-19”.
Meanwhile, Professor in Infectious Diseases at the Mater, Rotunda and UCD Jack Lambert says the country has become a ‘talking shop’ pointing out “Nobody’s in charge, everybody says we’re supposed to be doing something, even why have a green list, the purpose of the green list is to allow people to safely travel, we’ve a totally different green list from the rest of the world for no good reason then we said we’re going to change it every two weeks and now all of a sudden we haven’t”.
