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Details of the government’s new plan to deal with Covid-19 have started to emerge, as billions are expected to be spent on health care costs in the coming months.
When the government announced new measures in August designed to curb the spread of the virus, it also revealed that it was working on a plan that established how the country would “live” with it in the medium term.
The publication of the framework for the next six months is expected next week and will replace the roadmap for the reopening that ended in August.
Alert levels
The new plan is expected to include five alert levels with corresponding restrictions to reflect the level at which the virus is circulating.
Each individual county will be assigned a tier based on the level of Covid-19 present in the region.
Level Five is expected to represent an emergency situation similar to the one it faced in March.
In the release of the plan next week, the entire state is expected to be placed in Tier Two status, the second most benign of the five tiers, according to the Irish Times.
This despite the fact that confirmed cases of Covid-19 continue to increase in the capital, with more than half of the 211 new cases registered yesterday in the region.
Dr Colm Henry, a member of the National Public Health Emergencies Team (NPHET), has said that there is no desire to recommend a localized closure in Dublin and that other methods to reverse the upward trend of the virus will be discussed first, such as reducing the interactions between households.
Office returns
The government is expected to encourage companies to bring employees back to offices in areas that have been economically devastated by Covid-19 under the new plan.
Chambers Ireland’s Ian Talbot said that a safe return must be ensured: “Companies need a safe return to work.
“Obviously, we have a situation where many of our urban centers without offices operating at maximum capacity are suffering a lot. We need to get people back to work, but we need them to go back to work safely.”
International travel
The government is also expected to adopt an EU color-coded proposal for common travel that favors testing over quarantine, presented earlier this month.
The European Commission has proposed that this common color code system be based on virus incidence rates within countries, provided to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and updated weekly.
Areas will be designated with a particular color as follows:
- Green for an area where the total number of recently reported Covid-19 cases is less than 25 per 100,000 over a 14-day period and the percentage of positive tests from all COVID-19 tests is less than 3 percent.
- Orange for an area where the total number of new cases reported is less than 50 per 100,000 over a 14-day period but the percentage of positive tests is 3 percent or more OR the total number of new cases reported is between 25 and 150 but the percentage of positive tests is less than the percentage.
- Red for an area where the total number of new cases reported is more than 50 per 100,000 over a 14-day period and the percentage of positive tests is 3 percent or more OR the total number of new cases reported is more than 150 per 100,000 people over a period of 14 days.
- Gray if there is not enough information available to assess the criteria proposed by the Commission or the number of Covid-19 tests performed per 100,000 people is less than 250.
The Commission has proposed a common approach between Member States when it comes to travelers from ‘high risk’ areas. It has suggested that arrivals from other member states should not be denied entry, but quarantine periods or Covid-19 testing could be implemented after arrival.
Sports events
Up to 5,000 people could be allowed to attend sporting events at Croke Park and Aviva Stadium, with a maximum capacity of 500 for smaller venues.
Labor Sports Spokesperson Sen. Mark Wall said: “Before the additional restrictions introduced on August 18, up to 200 people were allowed to attend outdoor sporting events, allowing between 50 and 120 spectators to attend. football and GAA games.
“The Government must take steps to allow 200 people to attend sporting events, especially in large stadiums and in parts of the country with a low incidence of Covid-19.
“Sport plays an important role in communities across the country, particularly in rural communities, and the simple pleasure of being able to attend a club game as a spectator will mean a lot, especially for older people for whom it may be their sole social outlet ”.
Health bill
Under the new plan, health services for the winter will cost around 600 million euros, according to the Irish Times.
The document reports that the state faces additional healthcare costs of more than 3 billion euros to cope with the impact of Covid-19 in the next year, while the cost of a revised monitoring and testing system has been forecast between 900 million euros and euros. One billion.
The bill for personal protective equipment in the last quarter of 2020 and during the course of 2021 is likely to reach 1.5 billion euros.
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