CMO warned residents of five counties to ‘be more careful’

Public health experts have raised concerns about the “significant and substantial” number of Covid-19 cases in several counties amid last night’s fears of an outbreak in a north Dublin city.

Following the lifting of lockdown restrictions in Kildare, Acting Medical Director Dr. Ronan Glynn paid tribute to county residents for helping to stabilize the numbers but said the situation in Dublin, Limerick, Carlow, Wexford and Tipperary is now being watched. closely.

“That is not to say that we are looking at something in those counties, but it is a message to the people in those counties to be more careful and follow the lead,” he said.

Right now, this could be either way, but we are encouraged by the apparent stabilization of the figures over the past few days.

His warning came when a suspected Covid-19 outbreak in Skerries prompted the local GAA club and the soccer club to suspend all activity.

It is unclear whether the decision to suspend all adult women’s activities at the Skerries Harps club and at Skerries Town FC was made before or after the posting of a video on the social media platform TikTok featuring seven young women laughing. and joking about having to get tested for the virus. At least three of the women are members of the GAA club.

The video shows the friends individually stating which of them will test positive for the virus, as they have all been tested. One claims that another has already tested positive.

On Sunday, Skerries Harps suspended all activities of its adult female soccer and camouflage teams, and issued a statement.

While none of our club members have tested positive for Covid-19 at this time, we believe this is the appropriate course of action to take in the best interest of all our club members and the community at general.

When contacted, the club’s president, Paul Donnolly, said he had no comment to make on the matter.

The club was due to play a high-level county camouflage semi-final against Dalkey-based Cuala next weekend, but that match has now been called into question.

As the spokesman for the football club said, they have suspended all activity as a precaution.

Meanwhile, the Health Protection Surveillance Center (HPSC) was informed yesterday of another 53 confirmed cases of Covid-19. No new deaths were reported.

Of the latter cases, 75% were under 45, 25 are in Dublin and 11 in Limerick, while the remainder are in Kildare, Longford, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Laois, Meath, Roscommon, Tipperary and Westmeath.

Dr. Glynn also rejected suggestions that Killarney’s street party scenes over the weekend could have been avoided if open pubs were open.

“The vast majority of people are doing the right thing,” he said.

We need to focus on the silent majority rather than the rare occasion when a small group of people, relatively speaking, get it wrong.