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A Donegal doctor has said that close contacts who receive a negative Covid-19 test do not receive the message that they should restrict their movements for 14 days.
Speaking about RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor, Lifford-based Dr. Martin Coyne said that people are interpreting a negative test as “okay” when it “doesn’t mean that.”
He said they have seen cases where a patient tested negative the first time, before being tested a second time and testing positive, adding that people should get tested and then a second test seven days later.
Dr Coyne said, “You really don’t want to come into contact with this virus at all, because if it is a contact and it has tested negative, you still have to restrict your movements and stay home for 14 days, even if you have had a negative test. .
“And we’ve seen this with our own patients who have had negative tests and don’t get that message.
“They feel like a negative test means I’m fine, it doesn’t mean that.”
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He said that even if there is a negative test result in a household, everyone in the household should restrict their movements, adding that this can be avoided by wearing a mask, washing hands and following individual public health advice.
He said that the virus is a social problem, but that it is up to people to break the cycle of infection.
Level 3 Restrictions Day 1 and Next Appeals for No Unnecessary Cross Border Travel – Constant flow of traffic this morning across the bridge between Lifford in County Donegal and Strabane in County Tyrone @rtenews @EileenMagnier @dohertypj pic.twitter.com/hTDQ5PNVz1
– Vincent Kearney (@vincekearney) September 26, 2020
He said that if you think that way, you won’t catch Covid-19.
Dr Coyne said they had 17 Covid-19 cases in the six months leading up to Sept. 10, but that they have since had 57 cases in two weeks, which he said was an “explosion.”
He also said that once they had a positive test case, they would call patients to inform them of the result, before encouraging patients to try to identify people they may have been in contact with.
He said they would then get those people to contact him or his GP to arrange a test. With this, he said, they were able to identify specific events in which people may have contracted the virus.
Dr. Coyne said that the benefit of living in a rural community is that these events were not anonymous and that “the dogs on the street know where the parties have been.”
He said contact tracing is a public health skill and not something that most GPs would have.
He added that what he was doing in Donegal was done opportunistically and in a way that might not be foolproof.
Meanwhile, a prominent Donegal hotelier has said he fears the season is over and that it could be St. Patrick’s Day before resort towns like Bundoran see business return to normal.
Brian McEniff said he will be closing the Allingham Arms and Great Northern hotels and it was a sad moment for the staff, who will be unemployed.
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