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LIFTING Irish restrictions on Covid-19 will happen “slowly and in a controlled manner,” said the chairman of the Covid-19 expert advisory group.
Cillian De Gascun said some companies may open at reduced capacity, but the company will not immediately return to what it was, as the restrictions will be gradually removed.
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41 more Covid-19 deaths have been confirmed in Ireland, bringing the number of deaths to 571.
23 of the patients who died were women and 18 men, the health chiefs confirmed.
The total number of coronavirus cases is now 14,758 after 630 new cases were confirmed by Irish laboratories and 148 were diagnosed as positive in a German laboratory.
Speaking to RTE Radio One, Dr. De Gascun said some nonessential workers may return to their workplace, but did not say which industries it could include.
He added: “When you start lifting the restrictions, you do it slowly, and you need two to four weeks to see the impact those measures have had on the number of cases you’re seeing, the amount of admissions for intensive care and hospitalizations
“Everything we want to do we have to try in a controlled way and we are not going to launch everything at once.”
“Obviously, it could increase the number of people who could return to work.
“Right now we are focusing a lot on essential workers, so you may be able to expand the scheme there for, for example, some non-essential work.
“We are not going to return to how things were, everything will have to be measured.”
“The restrictions that will be lifted will be lifted in a controlled way, so there won’t be a feeling that something that closed completely today will open completely tomorrow.”
“It will be a feeling that they could open at reduced capacity or something like that in that region.”
TEST DELIVERY TIME
Dr. De Gascun said that before the restrictions are lifted, the response time for tests should be reduced to two to three days.
He said, “What we want to get to is a stage where, when it comes to someone, they get tested the same day or the next day and then have the result, either the same day or the next day. , and then contact tracking can begin.
“So realistically, that process will still take two or three days for someone to be referred to have a result and contact tracing is started.”
Currently, the HSE has the capacity to perform around 9,000 tests per day.
Dr. De Gascun said that the number of people referred to the system has decreased significantly.
That is expected to change when the case definition is expanded, allowing more people to be evaluated.
HOME CARE APPROACH
He said the National Public Health Emergency Team is focusing on nursing homes and will evaluate every staff member and resident in residential facilities.
He added: “Then at the end of that process, we will expand the case definition to try to make it more responsive and make sure we can track all viruses circulating in the community.”
He said officials intend to reach 100,000 tests per week before the restrictions are lifted.
He continued: “What we want to do is be able to test the contacts.
“What we imagine next week is 12,000 to 13,000 tests and then the following week we will go up to 15,000 or 16,000.
“It needs to accumulate because we are still waiting for the new equipment to come into operation, to be delivered and validated.”
PEAK OF PAST DEATH
Meanwhile, a new graph shows that daily deaths from Covid-19 in Ireland may have peaked ten days ago on April 7, and have nearly halved since then.
The number of deaths reported by the National Public Health Emergency Team every day is the number that is reported to them each day, rather than the numbers that actually died that day.
Medical Director Tony Holohan told RTE News that it may be a few days before they are notified of the deaths.
The new chart, compiled by RTE’s George Lee, shows the actual moment and pattern of deaths each day.
It shows that daily deaths actually peaked on April 7 with 39 deaths recorded, though the number reported that day was 36.
The new information also reveals that during the three weeks prior to April 10, the reported daily death toll did not actually represent the reality of how many people died that day.
Dr. Holohan previously said that Ireland has flattened the curve so much that there is no peak.
And he said he is “hopeful” about May 5, the date the closure of Ireland was extended.
Health Minister Simon Harris warned that Ireland was heading in a “dreadful and terrifying direction” before the blockade measures were introduced.
He said: “The appalling and terrifying direction we were heading in and that we saw in many other countries has so far been avoided thanks to your work and thanks to a public health-led approach to an unprecedented global crisis. But we have a lot more to do. Much more. “
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