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Restrictions on group activities will be with us for some time, according to the chairman of the NPHET Epidemiology Modeling Advisory Group.
Professor Philip Nolan said such restrictions are necessary to protect the priorities of schools, work, health care and sports.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said limiting discretionary contacts during winter is also necessary if we want to keep schools and workplaces open.
He spoke after local restrictions imposed on Co Kildare were lifted last night in early August to combat a coronavirus spike.
Professor Nolan said that a national approach to limit discretionary contacts “and not go crazy and allow the virus to spread while we are socializing” is a better approach in the first place than regional restrictions on movement.
He said there has been a stable daily count in the number of cases since August 19, but it should be lower as “the lower the number of cases, the better we can cope with another outbreak.”
People should consider their behavior when limiting group gatherings to six people indoors and 15 outdoors, he said.
Professor Nolan said authorities have learned that the countywide closures work and must happen quickly, as five to 10 cases can turn into 100 to 150 in a matter of days.
He said that in Kildare some cases could be mapped along the road network in the county and in neighboring counties. This showed how interconnected the spread of cases was around Kildare, he added.
He said that while local blockades are not the first line of defense, they may occur again as a third or fourth response to the growing number of cases.
Professor Nolan said Kildare was different from Laois and Offaly in that it had a large outbreak with a second wave, where the disease was spreading within homes and families and was beginning to spread to communities.
He said there were multiple clusters with secondary spread between clusters and the beginning of community transmission.
He said this differs from Tipperary at the moment, where a large number of cases are well explained, in defined clusters, and the spread is under control.
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He said Dublin has a high population density and a mobile population with a slow increase in cases.
He said it makes sense to use existing county boundaries to impose public health restrictions for epidemiological and administrative reasons.
By imposing a countywide lockdown, it avoided the set of connected shoots that were assigned to a county.
He defended the tests and said that one weekend, when the tests lasted more than 72 hours, it was caused by the stress of very large buds.
Professor Nolan said that by international standards our testing system is very good, although everyone is eager to cut response time and keep it at 48 hours to allow contact tracing in 72 hours.
Meanwhile, a Co Kildare hotel owner has said business owners “need cash and they need it fast” after going through “an unprecedented three weeks of economic disaster.”
Speaking about the same program, Mary Fennin of the Clanard Court Hotel in Athy, said that cash flow has been eliminated in the sector locally and that she has managed to trade successfully for only a month so far this year.
Ms. Fennin said that after a very uneventful January and February, the business would start to go live when the first closing came.
He said that once things were reopened, business was thriving and rooms were filling up quickly, but all of this was lost with the second closure.
He said his business has lost three weeks, including four weekends of the tourist season in August and the last of the summer holidays, which are now over.
He called on people to come to Kildare and support businesses, saying “we need all the support we can get.”
Ms Fennin said that government support is much needed in terms of cash flow and liquidity, adding that the cancellation of the Plowing Championships and the Electric Picnic Festival are yet another blow to the region.
The World Health Organization says that data to date suggests that 80% of Covid-19 infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are serious oxygen-requiring infections, and 5% are critical and require ventilation.
Generally, you must be 15 minutes or more close to and within two meters of an infected person to be considered at risk or in close contact.
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