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PEOPLE have only two weeks to save Christmas and reverse the setback of the lockdown that has halted the decline in the spread of Covid-19.
Five Covid-related deaths and 456 new cases of the virus were reported yesterday, jeopardizing the target of 50-100 cases per day in early December.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ronan Glynn implored people to make the most of the last two weeks of the six-week shutdown and cautioned that there was only a “short period to change this.”
When asked about the pubs reopening, he said it was clear to public health physicians that while the innkeepers might claim that these are controlled environments, there were “several levels of control.”
He said the reality is that alcohol and social distancing “don’t go hand in hand.”
Referring to street party scenes in Dublin over the weekend, he said that “just because we’ve seen scenes like the ones we saw on the streets on Saturday night doesn’t mean the answer is to open pubs.”
“The answer is that people protect themselves and others,” he said. “People can meet people for a drink like we saw on Saturday night and bring [Covid] home, which can have serious consequences for vulnerable people. “
Professor Philip Nolan, chairman of the Irish Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet), said that cases had stopped falling in the last six days and that infections probably occurred between 2 and 9 of November.
Dr. Glynn asked people not to focus on the holiday season unduly, but to focus on the basics of getting out of touch with others as much as possible.
“Don’t worry about what might happen in a few weeks,” he said, adding, “Don’t look ahead.”
However, when Nphet meets on Thursday week, its recommendations based on the virus level will affect how much the country can open for Christmas.
The number of patients in intensive care increased by two overnight to 33 yesterday and 274 people with the virus in total were hospitalized.
He said that “at best” the spread of the virus had stalled, but a number of indicators indicate that the situation was deteriorating.
When asked what was behind the setback, he said there was no single cause, but there appeared to be many small outbreaks across the country and a significant level of community transmission where people did not know where they contracted the virus.
Commenting on the reported outbreaks related to funeral gatherings, Dr. Glynn said that any case where people who knew each other were there would have a natural tendency to lower their guard.
He said the last thing people wanted was for more deaths to occur by gathering together at these sad events.
Commenting on the street party scenes in Dublin City over the weekend, he said it was frustrating for the vast majority that he was doing the right thing and especially for people who had been restricting his movements for a long time.
When asked which workplaces had seen outbreaks, he said there were some in food factories, the construction sector and a variety of manufacturing settings. None of the outbreaks themselves are particularly large, and that made the task of identifying a target more difficult.
The reality is that there are “lots, lots, lots” of small conglomerates across the country, which makes it very difficult to implement a policy measure to stop them. “The key that will stop that in the next few days is people’s behavior,” Dr. Glynn said.
He said there was a large hospital outbreak in Limerick and some of this had spread to the community. There was also an outbreak linked to student activity.
He would not speculate on what kind of recommendations Nphet would make in two weeks regarding the extent to which restrictions would be lifted. He also declined to comment on proposals to ban takeout pints.
Among the cases yesterday there were 105 in Dublin, 85 in Limerick, 43 in Cork, 38 in Meath and 25 in Clare. The remaining 160 cases are spread across 21 counties.
In yesterday’s briefing it was reported that so far only 20% of children have received the nasal flu vaccine.
The HSE bought 600,000 doses. Dr. Glynn said that about 500 children are hospitalized with the flu each year.
The precautions people are taking to prevent Covid-19 are also believed to be helping to block the spread of the flu so far this winter.
Irish independent
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