The National Public Health Emergency Team will meet this morning to consider whether the midlands lockdown should be lifted.
Restrictions have been in place in Laois, Offaly and Kildare for the past two weeks, and are due to end on Sunday.
However, NPHET remains concerned at the number of cases of Covid-19 in the midlands, especially in Kildare where eight workers at O’Brien Fine Foods have tested positive.
54 extra cases were confirmed across the country, at least two of them locally meaning 376 in Kilkenny & 208 in Carlow have been infected to date.
Infectious diseases professor, Jack Lambert, says the restrictions should be lifted if they’re confined to clusters.
Meanwhile, there’s been plenty of confusion and resistance to some of the new restrictions announced by the government this week. (Details of those here)
But Kilkenny based GP Tadhg Crowley says we all have up our game if we want to suppress the coronavirus again telling KCLR “It’s a warning sign and that’s what it is, numbers are on the increase and we are going to have to row back and I think it comes back to the individual, I mean part of me would love to see more people wearing masks around the place”.
He adds “You are going to need to stand back and maybe that was the warning shot of that now in our daily lives we’re going to have to say I’m going to have to get back to the two meters just get a bit more stricter”.
The government want to bring in laws to give the Gardai more power to enforce the restrictions but Dr Crowley says we shouldn’t have to be told that we need to be more careful again given the rising numbers noting “The penalties for this are severe but the penalty for someone dying from covid is a lot more severe so I just think we’re going to have to soak it up, and really look at the individual again”.
