NPHET says Covid-19 situation in Ireland remains 'precarious'
The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) has said the next week is crucial for Ireland against Covid-19 and the situation remains "precarious."
Professor Philip Nolan, who chairs the epidemiological modelling group, said there was “high uncertainty” around the reproductive or R number, which was estimated to be 1.4 and possibly as high as 1.8.
“We're in an uncertain situation. The one thing we know is that the reproduction number is above one but we don't know how far above one. And that means for the next couple of weeks we're in quite a precarious situation in terms of where this disease will track,” he said.
“The opportunity is here now to bring the transmission of this disease back under control and the reproduction number back under one,” he added.
Acting Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health Dr Ronan Glynn confirmed that 239 new cases were notified over the past 14 days, of which 186 arose during the two-week period.
The daily number of cases had doubled from nine per day in late June to 19 per day at present, the briefing heard.
Dr Glynn also confirmed 1,107 Covid-19 deaths in residential care settings, 985 of which were linked to clusters in nursing homes, accounting for 56% of all deaths.
A continued rise in infections, Dr Glynn said, would negatively impact on plans to reopen schools, resume healthcare services, and the need to protect the most vulnerable in residential care settings.
“We can see that we may be going in the wrong direction. We want to take the opportunity to take action now whilst we can to ensure we don't end up in a situation in a couple of weeks time where we have 150 or 160 cases per day,” Dr Glynn said.
“If we allow community transmission to increase with this disease, if we continue to see numbers like this increase, it is only a matter of time before we begin to see cases in those vulnerable groups,” Dr Glynn said.
Dr Glynn urged people to holiday at home this year and said visitors to Ireland should be limited to essential visits.
Yesterday the government made the decision not to press ahead with Ireland's Phase Four exit from the Covid-19 lockdown due to the rising case numbers.
Health Minister Stephen Donelly, speaking earlier today said that the government did not want to take the decision but it was necessary to do so.
Mr Donelly said: "When things looked good there was a public health rationale for accelerating therefore we did accelerate, now that the R rate has gone back up public health advice is to slow it back down again."
Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris said the decision to pause the lockdown exit increases the possibility of all children returning to school in September.
Mr Harris said it would have been “grossly irresponsible” to ignore public health advice and move forward with phase four as planned.
An immunologist from Trinity College Dublin also said the decision was “a step in the right direction.”
Dr Tomás Ryan, Associate Professor at the School of Biochemistry and Immunology said the final phase of reopening was always going to be incredibly ambitious unless Ireland went for a zero Covid strategy.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
