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Ireland is facing “chapter two” of the Covid-19 pandemic this winter, but no one knows what will happen in the coming months, said acting chief medical officer (CMO) Dr. Ronan Glynn.
Asking the public to stick to the guidelines and label, Dr. Glynn said that “the signs are good” regarding vaccine development, but now it is necessary to focus on the next nine months.
“We are in the process of closing chapter one of our experience with Covid and we are moving to chapter two as we enter winter,” he said on Friday’s Late Late Show.
“But I don’t want people to despair just because we are moving into winter, there are many things we can do as individuals and families to plan for that. So the government will provide a plan the week after the next. ”
In an interview often characterized by cautious optimism, Dr. Glynn said he could see the reopening of sports to the attending public before Christmas, but that it all hinged on the stability of the virus, which in turn depends on public behavior.
Regarding the new rules for pubs and restaurants to keep food purchase records for 28 days, he said it was not a specific recommendation of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), the governing organization he chairs, but was designed for the police. a minority of locals.
“I believe that the action that was taken in the last 24 hours was a genuine effort not to affect the vast majority of companies that have been trying to do the right thing, but to clamp down on those that did not.”
He also said that while the government did not always follow NPHET’s advice, this did not faze him.
“It is up to the government to take our recommendations and place them in a much broader context.”
However, the acting CMO’s focus is on the next few months, and he cautioned that there was no expert in the world who could say definitively what will happen.
Ireland has stabilized its recent increase in cases, but said that compared to other European countries, these rates are likely to fluctuate comparatively for some time.
“While we are here tonight, the disease is stable,” he said. “The schools have just reopened. We need to watch to see what happens to the disease over the next two weeks; if we see a steady stabilization or improvement, we will obviously re-examine the measures, relax the measures. ”
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