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Daily Covid-19 cases could rise to 1,200 by mid-January if the virus spreads rapidly over Christmas, public health officials warned, putting the state on the cusp of shutdown.
Medical director Dr. Tony Holohan said that scenario “is not inevitable” if people limit their contacts over the next month.
The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) projected late Thursday that if the virus’s reproduction rate rose significantly during a busy two-week holiday period, the country could be facing similar daily case numbers at levels of October who saw the introduction. of a six-week confinement.
Concern arises when fine dining restaurants and pubs reopen for indoor dining across the state on Friday for the first time in two months as part of the gradual emergence of Level 5 restrictions.
The Executive Director of the Health Service, Paul Reid, said that people faced the “greatest risk” of Christmas of their lives. When people gather at restaurants, “you can understandably let your guard down, especially after a glass or two of wine,” he said.
‘Extreme risk’
“Or maybe when people split up and don’t see each other again at Christmas, our natural feeling is to hug each other and wish each other a merry Christmas, which we know is an extreme risk in today’s environment.”
While encouraging people to enjoy the holidays, he urged them to “be at your highest level on guard” for the next several weeks.
Speaking during a press conference, Reid said there had been a lot of talk about another closure in January if cases spiked again due to the holiday easing of restrictions, but that “it doesn’t have to be that way if we take every precaution and do simple things very well. ”
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said it was “important” that despite the wonderful news about vaccines, people “do not lose discipline, for the next few weeks we live well, but we stay safe.” He told RTÉ that the drop in case numbers was “bottoming out a week faster than expected” and the lowest number is projected to be next week before the numbers rise again.
Daily case spiral
Professor Philip Nolan, chairman of Nphet’s modeling group, on Thursday outlined various projections for the number of daily cases next month, based on various potential reproduction rates of the virus, known as the R number.
If the R number increases from the current 0.8 to 1.4, as people started socializing this month, the country could see 300 to 600 new cases a day by the second week of January, he said.
“Realistically, there is concern that we may see R numbers in the 1.4 range, unless collectively we are exceptionally careful to limit our social contacts,” he told a news conference.
However, health officials were concerned about what would happen if the R number increased to 2, during a two-week period of expected increase in social contact and gatherings around Christmas.
“What it does is very significantly accelerate the spread of the virus during the central holiday period and leaves us in very rapid exponential growth in early January,” said Professor Nolan. “Those scenarios, with a very high level of viral transmission in the Christmas period, would see between 800 and 1,200 cases per day in mid-January,” he said.
Professor Nolan said the purpose of outlining the tough projections was to highlight “the risks we face in the weeks ahead.”
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