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A leading scientist rejected claims that Ireland would reach 10,000 daily cases of Covid-19 by Christmas, because we would take decisive action before reaching that point.
And regional closures are the way to go, and could help much of Ireland join the 1 billion people around the world already living in Covid-free areas, according to Dr Tomas Ryan of Trinity College Dublin.
Speaking exclusively to the Irish Mirror on Sunday, another expert, Professor Gerry Killeen of UCC, sent a stern warning that cases could skyrocket in December.
Professor Killeen said: “Our cases are 10 times higher than two months ago.
“If you move on that path without any change, it’s 1,000 cases a day in two months from now and 10,000 a day at Christmas.”
But Dr. Ryan said the country would take action before the situation reached 10,000 cases a day.
Dr. Ryan from Trinity’s School of Biochemistry and Immunology told RTE Radio 1’s Brendan O’Connor show: “Dr. Gerry Killeen has a very crude way of presenting things. But it only deals with facts.
“We are not going to continue like this, we cannot continue like this.
“I don’t think we are going to reach 10,000 cases a day at Christmas or something like that, because we will take action before then.
“But the question is, what does that action look like?”
Dr Ryan said regional closures have helped reduce the virus in other countries and could be the way forward for Ireland.
He said: “The local closures have been a success. Nobody wants to experience them, but they work, and regional restrictions are more ideal than national ones.
“Regional approaches are the way to go, because we have seen in other countries, even countries where they flattened their curve in March and April, the countries that did it regionally actually flattened their curve much faster than the countries that they did it nationally.
“And now we know that we can do this in Ireland. This is a really positive development in the history of our experience with the pandemic. “
(Image: Gareth Chaney / Collins)
In this way, Ireland can join the 1 billion people around the world living in Covid-free regions.
Dr Ryan said: “If you look at the world, if you look at the population of the Earth right now, more than a billion are currently living in a zero Covid situation.
“There may be only 4 million people in New Zealand, but a billion people, if you put China, Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, Iceland together; none of these countries have a Covid zero situation all the time, but most of those countries most of the time can have that.
“So if you have the goal of what a zero Covid situation would look like, and you have the payoff there, local communities can work together to achieve it.”
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