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The new year will start with at least a month of restrictive lockdown in an attempt to crush the return of the coronavirus and buy vital time to vaccinate vulnerable groups.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin confirmed the Level 5 restrictions, but promised that Ireland will survive the dark times by ensuring that “our people are still with us for better and brighter days”.
Mr. Martin promised the sacrifice of Ireland in “the depths of winter” and at the dawn of another year it would be worth it.
“We will rebuild society,” Martin said. “We will accept this crisis and make sense of the trauma that we have all been through in due time.
“We will do all these things and we will start them next year because the vaccine exists but right now we must stay at home and eliminate contacts, to make sure that as many of our people as possible continue with us to better enjoy the brighter days that are to come “.
The strictest social controls since March were kept in place as the country prepared to celebrate one of the toughest New Year’s Eve in history.
For the second day in a row, record cases of Covid-19 were recorded. Yesterday 1,718 new cases were confirmed and 13 deaths stood out.
The growing number of cases “will deteriorate further in the coming days,” the Taoiseach warned when announcing the new measures.
This will include a ban on visitors to private homes or gardens, unless they are providing care to children or the elderly or vulnerable people or are part of a bubble of support.
No social or family gatherings will be allowed in any setting, with an exemption for weddings with up to six guests and funerals with up to 10 mourners.
Mr. Martin urged the public to stay home in addition to essential purposes.
Exercising is permitted within 5km of the home, while all non-essential retail stores and gyms will close their doors at close tonight.
In the meantime, schools won’t reopen until January 11, extending the Christmas break by three days.
Martin promised there would be no prolonged school closings, but the other Level 5 restrictions will remain in effect until at least midnight on January 31.
Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and the leader of the Green Party, Eamon Ryan, suggested that there could be scope for a loosening of restrictions at the end of January.
But in outlining a “delay and vaccinate” strategy, the three leaders suggested it could be next summer before there is a significant loosening of the lockdown rules.
The growing level of concern reflects the pressure on the testing and tracing system and the pressures on the healthcare system that January could bring.
New strains of the fast-spreading virus in Britain and South Africa have prompted a travel ban until at least January 6.
However, a combination of the new strain and increased socialization around Christmas means that the spread of the virus is already causing alarm.
Mr. Martin said, “In the last seven days there have been 7,000 cases, that’s a 61% increase over the previous week.
“This is different from the second wave, we are seeing all ages, from 19 to 24 and a worrying increase in those aged 65 and over.”
The breeding number, which shows how fast the disease is spreading, has risen to 1.8.
“The situation is extremely serious, the numbers will deteriorate even more in the coming days,” Martin said.
“I have always been clear that we will do what we have to do when the virus is growing and now it is growing exponentially.
“This is not a time for nuance in our response. We must apply the brakes to the movement. “
Meanwhile, vaccinations for nursing home residents and staff will begin a week earlier than planned.
Starting Monday, the vaccines will be administered at two facilities in Dublin. – Raheny Nursing Unit and Hollybrook Lodge. More vaccines will be administered in nursing homes across the country on January 7 and 8.
Tadhg Daly, CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland, called the decision to start on January 4, a week earlier than originally scheduled on January 11, as a “welcome and welcome step.”
The profound economic and psychological cost of the pandemic has also been exposed.
An additional 90,000 workers have been added to the numbers claiming the welfare of Covid-19.
Some 50,000 additional workers were placed in Pandemic Unemployment Pay (PUP) after the restaurant industry was forced to close on Christmas Eve.
Martin said he believed that closing non-essential retail stores and gyms would result in another 40,000 workers being forced to receive welfare.
Additional funds would be released through the European Central Bank, the EU’s seven-year budget of € 1.8 trillion, and the special Covid recovery fund.
Martin defended the original decision in late November to ease lockdown restrictions to Level 3 earlier this month. He said he intended to allow people who were obeying the rules to have a “good Christmas and New Years”, but the arrival of the new variant of Covid-19 changed all that.
“The new variant is having an extraordinary impact on growth rates. “This is an event that happens once in 100 years,” said the Taoiseach in reference to the scale of the pandemic.
Irish independent
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