Dr Ronan Glynn’s ‘vital’ message when a 16-year-old dies with Covid-19 in Ireland

Dr. Ronan Glynn has delivered a “vital” message to the nation after a 16-year-old was confirmed to have tragically passed away from Covid-19 in Ireland.

Health officials announced Wednesday night that a total of 574 more people tested positive for coronavirus here, while another 56 deaths were confirmed.

31 of these deaths occurred in February, 13 occurred in January, 3 in December or earlier, while another 9 are under investigation.

A teenager was among those who sadly passed away, as the Health Department confirmed that the age range of the deaths announced today was 16 to 97 years.

And Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ronan Glynn explained that it was “vital” that Covid-19 levels remain low enough to allow children to return to school in the coming days and weeks.

He said: “We continue to see good progress, but this must be sustained. It is vital that our children return to school in the coming weeks.

“A key part of making this a success will be our continued collective acceptance of tried and tested public health measures. Stay home, work from home whenever possible.

“Given the increasing transmissibility of the virus now, we must continue to limit our social contacts and do everything possible to deprive this disease of opportunities to spread.”

Meanwhile, Dublin was once again the worst hit region with 175 new cases, while there were 57 in Limerick, 43 in Kildare, 37 in Galway, 35 in Meath and the remaining 227 cases are spread across 18 other counties.

It comes after Leo Varadkar insisted that Ireland’s exit from the blockade will be dictated by data, not dates, refusing to reveal whether the government is targeting specific numbers before beginning a reopening.

El Tanaiste said this morning that it understands that there are “a lot of depressed people” after the government announced on Tuesday a six-week extension of level five.

But he insisted that “there are reasons for optimism”, exposing the four factors that will inform decision-making on the reopening of the company.

“Essentially, there are four tests that we are going to apply, obviously based on the advice of physicians and public health scientists,” he told RTE’s Morning Ireland.

The Government will evaluate the R number, the number of people in hospitals with Covid, the pace of the launch of the vaccine and the influence of the variants in the pandemic.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach said that the government is taking a cautious approach to allow the return of different areas of society.

“I want to make sure that when we reduce each particular restriction, we take a careful approach to make sure that when we open something, it stays open,” Micheal Martin told the country in a state of the nation address.

Mr. Varadkar said this morning that after discussions with the medical director and the interim medical director, “the strong advice we have from them is that it’s not really a good idea to set exact metrics.

“It’s more about trends,” he said.

“In December we saw how quickly this can go in the wrong direction, and it is the trends there that we need to watch.”

He said the government expects the number of Covid-19 patients in the ICU to drop to half what it is now over the next month.

And he added that the launch of the vaccine offers real hope that the end of the pandemic is in sight.

Once people over 60 and under 60 with an underlying health condition are vaccinated, more than 98% of the work will be done, Varadkar added.

“We may actually see that vaccines make a real difference, in terms of hospitalizations and sick people and deaths, as opposed to cases, in May or June.

“And that could put us in a position where we can make decisions that we can’t make now.”