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Public health officials doubt the numbers surrounding Covid-19 will drop further on this side of Christmas.
It comes as the Taoiseach Micheál Martin said tonight that the situation remains under “constant review”, as new cases hover around the 300 mark every day.
Speaking separately on Monday, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr. Tony Holohan said that the 7-day incidence rate of the disease in the Republic is now “increasing.”
“It has increased by 13 percent in the last week, so our seven-day instance is going up even while our 14-day instance is still going down so to speak,” he said.
“But in both cases, seven and 14 days, we have the lowest instance in Europe as things are at the moment.”
The 14-day incidence rate of the virus per 100,000 inhabitants is now 80.4, compared to 89.2 on Monday of last week.
Dr. Holohan said public health officials believe the country’s daily case count has already passed its lowest point, as 242 new cases were confirmed tonight.
“It looks like we are bottoming out at something above 250, the five-day average is now just under 290 cases, so we are bottoming out so to speak,” he said.
“We think we have passed the low point to a fairly high level and much higher than we would like.”
review
Meanwhile, the Taoiseach said tonight that it was not “defensible” to suggest that the country could have been reopened after the lifting of Level 5 restrictions in early December.
“We can see that the numbers are still at or around the 300 mark, so the situation from Covid’s point of view is one that we have to keep under constant review,” he said.
“The idea that, you know, you could open everything just isn’t sustainable, but I think we have the right balance.”
Dr. Holohan said this Christmas was “not the time” for international travel ahead of the launch of a Covid-19 vaccine.
“Now is not the time, we have good reason to be hopeful about the position we are in,” he said.
“We, as a country, have been able to reduce the virus to levels of transmission much lower than other countries in Europe.
Launch of vaccines
“We have several vaccines now and active preparations for the introduction of those vaccines, over the course of the next few weeks and months we will see that they are being developed and hopefully a significant number of people will be vaccinated in 2021,” said Dr. Holohan .
“If we can keep things under control, we can prevent an increase in infection that will lead to hospitalizations, lead to admission to intensive care and may well lead to the deaths of people whose lives could be protected.”
When asked about the future launch of vaccines, Dr. Holohan said that the first authorization by the European Medicines Agency of a vaccine is not planned before December 29.
“Other authorizations are unlikely to occur in 2020,” he said.
Ireland
Nphet says the ‘low point’ of Covid-19 has passed as n …
“Our expectation is that vaccine supplies can follow shortly after authorization at the European level to individual member states, of which we will be one.
“Our intentions are to have plans to allow those vaccines to be given to people almost as soon as they arrive.”
Dr. Holohan said vaccines will be given to the public on a “priority basis.”
No further Covid-19 related deaths were reported in Ireland on Monday, leaving the national figure at 2,099.
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