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Too many contacts. That’s why Level 3 didn’t work, experts say, and why the toughest public restrictions put in place by the government won’t work without greater acceptance or enforcement from the public.
After four weeks of life under Level 3 in Dublin, three weeks in Donegal and two weeks for the rest of the country, the Government finally admitted over the weekend that the restrictions were not working. The number of infections has continued to increase dramatically over the last month.
On September 18, the day Dublin moved to Level 3, the rate was 123.6 cases per 100,000 people; since then it has risen to 232.2 cases, an increase of 88 percent.
On September 24, the day Donegal moved to Level 3, the rate was 159.6 cases per 100,000. Now it is 347.4 cases, having more than doubled in that time, or more precisely, an increase of 118 percent.
On October 5, the day the rest of the country went to level 3, the national incidence rate was 116 cases per 100,000. It has more than doubled to 261.7 cases per 100,000 since then.
“The problem is that people continue to have too many contacts and the virus is in the community and continues to spread,” says UCC professor of epidemiology Patricia Kearney.
Despite calls from the National Public Health Emergency Team to the public to reduce discretionary contacts, the average close contacts of infected people decreased slightly from last month, but still remains above five per person, very above an average of two after the March-April close.
Crowds gather
Videos of crowds after sports games or scenes of crowded gatherings on public streets provided the visual evidence to support what the Covid-19 incidence rates showed.
To complicate matters, contact trackers have been reporting long and challenging calls, including longer “Call Three” conversations with contacts of infected people to convince them to undergo tests and isolate themselves and that they are at risk of infecting others even if they are asymptomatic.
“If people don’t accept this, they will never stop, no matter how many levels of lockdown you go to. If people don’t adhere to the guidelines, then the transmission of the virus won’t stop, ”says Kingston Mills, professor of experimental immunology at Trinity College Dublin.
“If you go to Level 5 and people don’t accept it, it won’t work either. All it is doing is delaying the inevitable, which will continue to spread. “
Recent and well-publicized case studies of unrestricted community spread, including the man who failed to restrict his movements after a trip abroad and infected at least 56 people, including up to 10 households and a sports team, show the need to repeatedly explain the importance of self-isolation to the public and the requirement to enforce the rules when they are not obeyed.
Fines for breaking the rules
The government has said that it is considering introducing fines to enforce Covid-19 restrictions. Across the border in Northern Ireland, there are fines for failing to comply with public measures.
“You need to enforce the rules and you need to make it mandatory for people to take the test if they are called in or cut off,” says Mills. “Without that, it just won’t work.”
Saliva tests, which are less invasive and faster than swabs from the back of the nose, can also encourage more people to come forward for tests and help improve public compliance, he said.
The level of restriction set by the government will guide the public in the different ways it must comply, but the overall message remains the same.
“We really need to have very high levels of restrictions to control the virus because we clearly have uncontrolled community transmission,” says Professor Kearney.
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