New plan ‘Living with Covid-19’ could reduce social gatherings

Parties and social gatherings could be limited to household members only under the more severe restrictions proposed in the draft of the ‘Living with Covid-19’ plan, the Irish Examiner can reveal.

The new plan, to be unveiled next week, will have five tiers of restrictions, with the most severe one seeing Ireland revert to full lockdown. It proposes:

• Level 5, the most severe limitations, will see people in the affected area being ordered to ‘stay home’ and exercise within 5 km of their home, similar to the early parts of the national lockdown;
• Level 3 rules would include religious services moving online in the affected area;
• Level 1 would be introduced in areas with low instances of Covid-19 in the community, allowing gatherings in private homes of no more than 10 visitors from three households.

Details of the long-awaited nine-month plan “Living with Covid-19” were revealed in a document titled “Review of Public Health Measures” ahead of its launch next week.

The documents are understood to contain 19 separate titles on how the regulations would operate at different levels of restriction.

These include ‘social / family gatherings’, ‘sport and exercise events’ and ‘religious services’.

For example, at level 3, religious services would have to move online and places of worship could remain open ‘for private prayer only’.

At level 1, bars, cafes, restaurants and pubs with alcoholic beverages can open with protection measures, with maximum numbers in restaurants and cafes linked to the capacity of the establishment, with limited capacity of bars with alcoholic beverages and strong protection measures .

At level 5, the document states that pubs can only offer “takeaway food or delivery only: closed wet pubs”.

The details emerged when the National Public Health Emergencies Team (NPHET) recommended yesterday a reduction in the number of social visitors to people’s homes in Dublin, to allow just six visitors from two other homes, rather than three other homes. as is currently the case.

Government sources said the plan is for the Cabinet to consider NPHET’s advice next Tuesday in the context of the new plan.

It occurred when 196 new cases of Covid-19 were reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Center yesterday. No new deaths were reported.

Of the new cases, 107 are in Dublin, 12 in Waterford, 11 in Limerick, eight in Wicklow, seven in Meath and Kildare, and six each in Laois and Westmeath.

Acting Medical Director Dr. Ronan Glynn urged people to be careful to reduce the spread of the virus.

“By limiting our contacts, we limit the opportunity Covid-19 has to spread throughout the community and ultimately protect our families, our communities and those who are most vulnerable to the most severe impacts of the disease,” he said.

Meanwhile, three new emerging Covid-19 testing centers were opened in Dublin and Limerick following an increase in GP referrals, from an average of 5,000 a day earlier to 13,000 on Monday and 8,000 on Tuesday.

In scenes reminiscent of the early days of the virus, long lines were seen at Dublin testing centers, as the number of people seeking evidence increased.

Irish College of General Practitioners President Dr Mary Favier said GPs have been very busy since schools reopened, with “runny nose, temperature and coughing back to school,” but said most of those tests have been negative.

Separately, a new study by researchers at Nanjing University School of Medicine in China suggests that the antibody response in patients who have recovered from the coronavirus is typically not strong and declines dramatically one month after discharge from hospital.

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said: “Again, the evidence shows that the half-life of these antibodies in the blood is not particularly maintained.”