'It could take six weeks before daily Covid-19 cases drop to 200'

File picture: Denis Minihane.

It could take up to six weeks before daily Covid-19 case numbers drop down to 200, a Nphet briefing heard last night.

Cases are dropping, but at a slower rate than predicted.

Speaking as a further 687 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed, health chiefs said that, at the current rate of decline, the day when there could be a single-digit number of cases is "far into the distance".

At the start of February, the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Group had hoped to have case numbers as low as 200 to 400 by the end of the month. 

Incidence is exceeding expectations

Yesterday's figure far exceeded this. The five-day moving average has dropped from 800 just one week ago, but it measured 650 per 100,000 of population yesterday.

Philip Nolan said estimating the rate of decline now makes definite predictions harder, but he said: “If we are going down at 4% per day, we will get there quickly. If it is 2% per day, it will be slower.

“For 200 cases per day at 2% per day, you are looking at five or six weeks," he said. "At the current rate of decline, single-digit is so far into the distance that I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head.” 

It is not possible, he said, for the HSE to restart retrospective contact-tracing yet when case numbers are this high.

“600 cases per day is an extraordinary level of investigation for 60 public health specialists to deal with,” Prof Nolan said.

Children and young people

Officials were pressed on the rate of cases among young people and children as hundreds of thousands returned to schools.

Prof Nolan clarified that the incidence rate in those aged 12 and under remains below the population average, and it will continue to be closely monitored, while deputy chief medical officer Ronan Glynn said Nphet is to discuss the matter of older children in primary schools wearing masks.

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said that, while it's hoped most people will have been vaccinated by the end of June, public health restrictions may be in place until the end of the year. File picture

In September, the World Health Organization suggested 12 as the cut-off age for mask-wearing, but Ireland went with 13.

Dr Glynn added that, as case numbers remain high, people should wear masks outdoors if they cannot socially distance.

He called on the public to take heart from the steady rate of decline, saying although it is slow case numbers have dropped from over 6,000 in January.

If people don’t come into contact with each other, it can’t spread. If people continue to stick with this, they will starve this virus of opportunity to spread.

Dr Glynn added that, while he hopes most of the population will have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccination by the end of June, he expects some element of public health restriction to remain in place until the end of the year.

"I would hope that it will be a lot closer to what we have understood to be normal,” he said.

Abiding by restrictions

Insights were also given on the public's adherence to Covid restrictions.

Pete Lunn, head of the ESRI's Behavioural Research Unit said their findings indicated that a quarter of the adult population meets with three or more people in a 48-hour period, while half the population does not meet with anyone outside their household in that time.

He said: “Most people believe that others are enjoying more of a social life than they are. Those who are in fact most socially active do not realise this.”