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Schools and construction sites are scheduled to close until the end of the month under new restrictions that the government will approve on Wednesday.
Click-and-collect purchases will also be prohibited, but non-essential retailers will be able to continue shopping online where the items are delivered.
All passengers arriving in the country will be asked to show a negative Covid test and the requirement will be introduced for people coming from the UK and South Africa starting this weekend.
The leaders of the government, HSE and Nphet met for more than five hours to discuss a series of new restrictions that will put the country back into a lockdown almost identical to that of March.
In an attempt to address the mobility of the virus, the government will keep children out of classrooms until January 30.
However, Education Minister Norma Foley hopes to keep all 124 special education schools in the country open and the 1,836 special classes in mainstream schools.
She was still working out the finer details of this Tuesday before Wednesday’s cabinet meeting.
It is understood that allowing Leaving Cert students to attend school was considered, but this was discarded as it would mean that around 60,000 students would still mingle.
The government is determined to protect the completion certificate exam and ensure that it is carried out.
“There is a real determination that the exit certificate will be carried out, so we are not looking at the expected ratings from last year,” said a government source.
Final details of the latest restrictions will be approved by Cabinet on Wednesday, however the Government’s Covid subcommittee agreed that the Early Childhood Education and Care Plan (ECCE) will be halted until the end of the month.
Nurseries will be allowed to remain open, but will be required to only care for the children of essential workers.
Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman will clarify the specific list of people who are now considered essential workers under the new restrictions.
Construction sites will also close under the new stricter measures, however essential and critical projects can continue.
It is understood that this would include a percentage of social housing, health and other projects that are considered critical, as well as necessary reforms.
Construction of school buildings and basic water services will also be allowed to continue.
Non-essential retailers will be asked to stop clicking and collecting services, but will be allowed to operate click-and-deliver services.
Meanwhile, new regulations for those entering the country will take effect for people traveling to Ireland from the UK and South Africa starting this weekend, but will then be extended to all passengers shortly thereafter.
The cabinet is expected to pass a series of new measures tomorrow in a bid to curb the rapid spread of the virus, including extending the travel ban from Britain and South Africa until midnight on Friday.
After this time, all persons entering the country from these regions must demonstrate that they received a negative PCR test in the last 72 hours.
They will be asked to present the results of this Covid-19 test when landing at airports or entering Irish ports.
The travel ban was due to expire tomorrow night and was originally introduced in an attempt to stop or slow the spread of new strains in both the UK and South Africa.
The new regulations for education and retail come as the Health Department confirmed 5,325 new cases of Covid-19.
The total number of confirmed cases in the country since the outbreak of the pandemic began stands at 113,322.
The increase in cases amid the third wave of the virus has led to an increase in hospitalizations, warned Dr. Holohan, medical director (CMO) of the Department of Health.
The CMO said these increasing hospitalizations are putting greater pressure on the healthcare system and that everyone must stop the spread of the infection.
“We are now experiencing a considerable increase in cases and hospitalizations. We can quickly reverse this by sticking to the measures that we know worked last spring, ”said Dr. Holohan.
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