Ireland shouldn’t be content with 300 cases a day, says disease expert



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An infectious disease specialist says we shouldn’t be satisfied with hundreds of new Covid-19 infections a day.

The national infection rate has remained virtually static after 248 more cases were confirmed last night.

Three additional deaths were also confirmed.

The most recent models from the National Public Health Emergencies Team (Nphet) show that the outbreak has stabilized in Ireland and will not go down much since restrictions were relaxed.

Ireland has the lowest rate of the virus in Europe, with a 14-day per 100,000 incidence rate of 77.6 according to the latest data from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention, but Professor Sam McConkey believes we can still do better.

Is it a public policy that wants to accept 300 cases a day and that around one or two people die a day?

“In my opinion, it’s a better place to be if we can actually control it even better than that and reduce the number of daily deaths to zero and the number of daily cases very low, because then with more confidence we can control each outbreak.”

Elsewhere, the US is preparing to distribute doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine after it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday night.

The EU is due to make a decision on the vaccine on December 29, while the verdict on the Moderna vaccine is scheduled for January.

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