There are no Covid outbreaks in restaurants and pubs, with the majority in homes and schools

Homes and schools remain the most common locations for Covid-19 outbreaks in Ireland, according to the latest data.

The latest weekly report on outbreaks and clusters produced by the Health Protection Surveillance Center (HPSC) recorded 254 outbreaks in the week ending December 19.

During this week, there were no outbreaks in restaurants, cafes, pubs, hotels, guesthouses, B & Bs or outlets.

There was an outbreak associated with a grooming service.

It comes as the Republic will enter a Level 5 lockdown with “tweaks” to suppress rising infection rates, beginning with the hospitality sector shutdown starting at 3pm on Christmas Eve.

However, the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has previously explained its advice to shut down the hospitality sector amid data linking limited outbreaks to restaurants and pubs.

Professor Philip Nolan said that outbreaks that likely originated in these settings were classified as outbreaks in private homes, due to a lack of resources to trace their origins.

When asked why the data does not reflect outbreaks in hospitality settings, the Irish Times reports that Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ronan Glynn said that of 7,000 cases in the last fortnight, the source of infection in 3,000 is unknown.

Schools and homes

In the week ending December 19, private homes remained the most commonly reported outbreak site with a total of 171 groups registered.

The total number of outbreaks reported in the week decreased by 153, compared to an updated number of 407 outbreaks reported the previous week.

Schools and day care centers were associated with 22 outbreaks, of which 17 occurred among schoolchildren or staff and five occurred among day care centers.

There were also two other outbreaks among third-level students.

There were nine new acute hospital outbreaks, another nine in nursing homes, two in community hospitals or long-stay units, and five in residential institutions.

Five new outbreaks occurred among vulnerable populations, three of them among Irish travelers, one in the Roma community and one in a direct provision center.

There were two outbreaks related to travel or transportation, while five outbreaks were reported in the workplace: two related to manufacturing and one that occurred in a business associated with meat processing.

St. Stephen’s Day

Since the beginning of August, which saw the start of the second wave of the virus in Ireland, 8,131 outbreaks have been reported.

It was recorded that 78 percent occurred in private homes, one percent in hospitals, and one percent in nursing homes.

It comes as public health officials have told the government that the Covid-19 situation in Ireland is now the most serious since the pandemic hit in March.

Current measures designed to suppress rising infection rates will not be enough to reduce cases to less than 1,000 per day and a complete lockdown with the closure of non-essential retailers and an earlier ban on home visits should take effect as of April St. Stephen’s Day, Nphet said.

The chairman of Nphet’s epidemiological advisory group, Professor Philip Nolan, said that the relaxation of restrictions on hospitality “coincides with a very rapid acceleration in the level of disease.”