Ronan Glynn: Covid-19 cases will rise unless discretionary social meetings cut out

Dr Ronan Glynn acknowledged that the Kildare lockdown has been far from perfect.

The acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn has said that what is “more important than anything” in the fight against coronavirus is that someone with symptoms “comes forward immediately and gets a test”.

“That is how we will control the disease,” he said.

"If we don't cut out our discretionary social interactions there is no doubt the number of cases will rise. If that happens we would be concerned about the effect on access to critical care, hospitalisations, and mortality."

Speaking before the Oireachtas special committee on the virus, Dr Glynn said schoolchildren who test negative for the virus and who are 48 hours free of symptoms “should be able to return to school”.

The committee was hearing from the acting CMO and the chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group (IEMAG) Professor Philip Nolan.

Professor Nolan said there is “a degree of comfort” regarding the return of schools, which is beginning this week.

He said it is unlikely a child will bring the virus home, but what is likely is that if they do that adults will spread the disease more widely around society.

“What you’re seeing is a carefully judged prioritisation of schools,” he said.

Dr Glynn said less than 3% of children under the age of 14 in the country have contracted the virus. He said social distancing among young children is “impracticable”, adding that older children up through primary school and into second level “should be maintaining a distance of one metre from each other”.

In terms of people avoiding testing due to economic constraints or fear of losing a job, he said that it must be ensured that “people who need a test don’t have any fear about their work, that they are compensated for 14 days, and that economic factors have no bearing on the fight against the disease”.

The committee heard from a number of TDs from Kildare, which is currently enduring its third period of lockdown. Fianna Fáil’s James Lawless said that he wants to know why the county is still in lockdown, adding that electoral district-level data would be made available on a daily basis.

“People need this data today. Can it be made available immediately as it would drive support for the measures.” 

In response, Dr Glynn said that the dashboard would be refreshed later this week.

He acknowledged that the Kildare lockdown has been far from perfect.

“The county boundary is crude, but we had to take some crude measures,” he said. “At times you have to move fast at the enemy at the expense of precision.” 

Fine Gael’s Bernard Durkan meanwhile asked if “any lessons” had been learned from the localised lockdowns. Professor Nolan replied in the affirmative.

“The Kildare Laois Offaly outbreaks show that if you move quickly you can contain the virus,” he said.

“The last few weeks have shown us that the systems are in place. The system stood up extremely well to a very large challenge,” he added.