[ad_1]
Updated 42 minutes ago
PEOPLE ACROSS the country are being asked to cut the number of close contacts they have in half over the next week in an attempt to control a recent spike in Covid-19 cases.
Professor Philip Nolan said that people shouldn’t “delete” their social contacts entirely, but should half of them over the next week and beyond.
This echoes the advice of the medical director Dr. Ronan Glynn and Minister of Higher Education Simon Harris, who have said that people should count your close contacts over the past seven days and cut that number in half over the next seven days and beyond that.
Dublin started a three-week stint at Level Three of a five-tier Covid-19 alert plan, meaning pubs and restaurants can only serve customers abroad and people are encouraged to work from House.
But the government is emphasizing that the increase in Covid-19 cases is nationwide: Glynn warned that Louth, Donegal and Waterford are seeing troubling trends:
- Louth: The 14-day incidence was 53 / 100,000 last Sunday; yesterday they were 102 / 100,000. There have been 131 cases in the last fortnight
- Donegal: The 14-day incidence was 26 / 100,000 last Sunday; yesterday it was 84 / 100,000. There have been 133 cases in the last fortnight
- Waterford: The 14-day incidence was 55 / 100,000 last Sunday; yesterday they were 89 / 100,000. There have been 103 cases in the last fortnight.
At a press conference today, Taoiseach Department Deputy Secretary General Liz Canavan said Limerick, Kildare, Leitrim and Offaly counties are now also showing “worrying trends.” In Wicklow, cases have risen from 19 to 99 “in the last few weeks.”
If current trends continue, Canavan said that “based on the model that is available to us,” nationwide there will be between 500 and 1,000 cases a day in a month, with 50 to 60% of that in Dublin.
Nolan, the chairman of Ireland’s Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group, told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that if the average number of Covid-19 cases stabilizes within 10 days, “it’s a really hopeful sign” that the current measures are working. .
“If in 10 days that [average] it’s stabilizing … People should stay with us then, stay with us for the rest of two or three weeks to see if we can get the trend down, ”he said, adding that the virus tends to break out very quickly and is eliminated. of the community. more slowly.
He suggested that some Dublin businesses could open in three weeks and other counties could avoid further measures if this proved effective in controlling the recent surge in confirmed Covid-19 cases.
Yesterday 396 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed, 241 of them in Dublin. Nolan said he was “a little taken aback” when he saw those numbers yesterday.
When asked if the increase in confirmed cases was the result of expanded tests that detected mild and asymptomatic cases, Nolan said this was partially true:
Three or four hundred cases today is the equivalent of 100-130 cases in March or April.
He said a seroprevalence study suggests that in March and April, for every case detected, there were two other mild or asymptomatic cases not detected in the community.
He said that in March or April, the death rate for people over 65 was one in five, while now it is one in 20. “That is not insignificant, it is still a lethal virus.”
Commenting on the so-called wet pubs reopening today, for the first time since March, Nolan said:
You can go to the pub; the question is whether and how often you should.
No news is bad news
Support the magazine
your contributions help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to you
Support us now
When asked about Ireland’s testing and tracing capabilities, Nolan said that “we have very strong testing capabilities,” and while testing was important, it is not a substitute for public health measures such as limiting contacts and being careful. when we meet people.
The second line of defense is to test and track contracts, manage cases and outbreaks when they occur. But don’t let anyone tell you that the latter is a substitute for the former.
Canavan said that in the coming months “special attention” will be paid to the mental well-being of young people; And while she said “responses would be put in place” through youth services, she did not specify how it would be done.
[ad_2]