Dr Holohan: Decision to loosen restrictions will be made 'down to the wire'
Patience is “clearly wearing thin” and people are becoming increasingly “frustrated” with the social restrictions in place to combat Covid-19, but Ireland remains in a battle to lower the community transmission of the virus according to the chief medical officer.
“We are not there yet,” Dr Tony Holohan told the latest briefing from the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) in Dublin.
“We’re still reporting a significant number of cases, we still have a significant challenge in terms of healthcare facilities reporting cases.”
Dr Holohan said he was hopeful that further improvements in terms of Ireland’s numbers will be seen over the final seven days before the restrictions are due for review on May 5, and said that any decision to loosen restrictions will be made “down to the wire”.
“I haven’t made my mind up,” he said.
His words came as the NPHET announced a further 18 deaths, at least 17 of which were confirmed as being from Covid-19, giving an overall death toll of 1,102 across the country to date.
Meanwhile, a further 386 cases have been confirmed meaning there have now been 19,648 instances of Covid-19 in Ireland.
Regarding the crisis seen in long term residential care facilities, Dr Holohan said that there are now 355 clusters of the disease in such settings, with 3.048 cases having been recorded in nursing homes alone.
To date 641 deaths have been recorded in such long-term care facilities, 58% of the toll seen thus far.
Separately, the briefing heard that 10 deaths have been recorded to date in disability care centres, with such settings approximately 90% free of the coronavirus per Dr Siobhan Ni Bhriain, the HSE’s integrated care lead.
Regarding the coming bank holiday weekend and the giant Garda operation which will be in place in order to maintain the climate of social distancing, Dr Holohan confirmed that the emergency powers afforded to gardaí - which sees large fines and prison time among the options available to the force in extreme circumstances - are still in place after a second set of regulations concerning same had been signed into law.
He was unable to confirm what the expiry date of those powers is however.
He insisted that the improvements necessary in order for restrictions to be lifted can still be achieved, though he acknowledged that the weekend just passed had seen a very significant increase in social activity across the island.
“We’ve done great work together as a country in terms of preventing the widespread community transmission of this virus that could have led to the kind of scenes we saw in many European cities,” he said.
We’re still seeing improvement, but the rate of improvement is slowing down a little bit. The number of people in intensive care units for example is dropping, but at a slower rate than it was.
Dr Holohan said that “preparations are being made” to communicate the new case definition of Covid-19 in an Irish context to GPs via an algorithm, with a view to it being operational tomorrow.
What the new definition will be is unclear - at present only those with an underlying condition or two specific symptoms of the virus are being tested, which has meant testing capacity is not being used.
However, Dr Holohan acknowledged that the latest change to the definition is likely to lead to a further spike in cases.
He also moved to allay suggestions that NPHET is not operating in a transparent manner, and said that the reason minutes of its twice-weekly meetings, which are generally four hours in length, have not been made available for more than three weeks is purely down to “a workload issue”.
