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The Taoiseach has said it does not foresee new Covid-19 restrictions before Christmas and has described the figure of 400 daily cases that Nphet has set as a threshold for action is “very arbitrary.”
Nphet said in a letter to the government last week that it would be possible to suppress the spread of the virus with a three-week intervention only if it starts when cases approach 400 a day.
The five-day average of new cases stood at 277 on Monday.
Micheál Martin said the government was not only looking at the numbers of new cases, but also the level of hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths to decide on the imposition of restrictions.
He said the state had the best performance in Europe on the average of seven days of new cases.
“We want to stay in that position, so we won’t be slow to react, but we don’t anticipate having to do it before Christmas,” the Taoiseach told the Irish Times in an interview on Monday.
On Tuesday, the country moved from Level 5 restrictions to Level 3 with the reopening of non-essential retail stores and other public services, but home visits remain restricted until December 18.
Martin said the expectation was that cases would continue to drop this week due to the delay in the remaining restrictions.
He said an increase in cases after the government allowed home visits on Christmas after December 18 would depend on people’s behavior.
“Now it is up to all of us, individually and collectively in our behavior, to control this virus and eliminate it, and that is particularly true from the 18th onwards,” he said.
The government was “more comfortable” with the reopening of museums, libraries or galleries without this leading to a spread of the virus and this would improve the quality of life at Christmas, he said.
“There are limits to which a government can lock people up for an extended period of time, to be crude about it, and we have to strike the right balance. It’s about balance, ”he said.
Nphet has argued that if socialization and mixing in the home took place “a third wave of disease will occur much more quickly and with higher mortality than the second.”
Mr. Martin acknowledged that the government’s plan to ease the restrictions was “a bit of compensation”, but that if the government were to introduce more restrictions “that can actually stop the spread of the virus, then we would be prepared to do so.” .
“The message really is that people watch your behavior, and every touch counts,” he said.
Nphet informed the government in a letter to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly last Thursday that “it will be important to intervene early to get transmission back under control.”
Health officials said the threshold of 400 cases per day would be exceeded by January if restrictions are eased to a level where cases are higher in early December than the original starting point of fewer than 100 cases per day.
Mr. Martin said that the Government understood that there was a level of new cases in which the virus then grew exponentially and that it would “watch” this number.
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