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Medical Director Dr. Tony Holohan has shared a message of hope that he believes the six weeks of level five restrictions will be enough to get the coronavirus back under control in time for Christmas.
Peaking with Ryan Tubridy on the Late Late Show, Dr. Holohan was cautiously optimistic about what can be accomplished if everyone does everything they can to avoid close contact. Dr. Holohan said: “We will get it back… we will be in much better shape after these six weeks.
When asked by Ryan if he thought Ireland should be hopeful about the festive period this year, Dr. Holohan said: “Yes, I think the Irish can look forward to a decent Christmas.
“We are not going to return to a Christmas like last year. We had a normal Christmas last year, but clearly there will have to be a change in the way we experience Christmas this year. Fortunately, we didn’t know anything about Covid last Christmas. “
He added: “We don’t want to be in a situation where we have to ask people to restrict the things they appreciate at Christmas, but it will have to be different from last year.”
Dr Holohan acknowledged “pandemic fatigue” and said he knew people were fed up with “people like me coming in and giving them bad news all the time”, but said if the people of Ireland can do a little more, it will make all difference.
“Six weeks seems like a long time, and it is, to carry this burden, especially considering what we’ve been through throughout the year so far. But, within that time frame, if we hit a reproductive number at the level we saw in the spring, then we could get to a much better place in terms of numbers. If we get below 100 [cases per day]Sure, we would get a substantially long period of time and benefit from that.
“We are getting more confident and will know more as the year progresses, but we may be able to introduce things like vaccines into our planning, which would be wonderful. We hope that 2021 will bring us those developments, ”said the CMO.
Dr. Holohan admitted that the burden of the virus in young people has been significant, but asked them to do a little more to shift trends in the right direction.
“We have managed to keep the breeding number between 1.2 and 1.4 in recent months, which means that most of the people in the country are behaving that they are helping to suppress the virus, but not enough. We need a little more, as the level of infection in the population is increasing.
“Yes, we are very concerned, but that does not mean that we cannot express some hope and optimism about the probability of changing the situation. We could change this pretty quickly, ”he said.
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