Quarantine sign-off this week as Covid-19 cases highest in three weeks
Beautiful young couple with protective face masks doing check-in at the hotel reception. Male receptionist also wearing protective mask and gloves as precaution against coronavirus.
Mandatory hotel quarantine is expected to be enacted this week, amid the highest number of new Covid-19 cases in over three weeks.
Some 769 confirmed cases were reported yesterday, as well as two further deaths.
There are 360 people currently in hospital, with HSE chief Paul Reid expressing worry at the "slight increase" in hospitalisations.
A memo on hotel quarantine will be brought to cabinet for approval on Tuesday in order to formalise the implementation.
Mandatory quarantine was signed into law two weeks ago, while more than 34,400 people have arrived in Ireland in the three-week period since the Government signed off on the hotel quarantine plan.
Tifco Hotel group has been contracted by the State to provide a "one-stop shop to run the whole thing", according to one minister.
Tifco owns the Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn Express at Dublin Airport and Travelodge Hotels at both Dublin and Cork Airport. In total, it owns 24 hotel properties with over 2,550 hotel rooms in total.
A contract is in place with Tifco and the regulations on how the system will operate will be completed by Tuesday "at the latest", when the portal will go live with a booking system.
The single contract will see the hotel group provide accommodation, security, transport, testing and food for those in quarantine.
It will become operational in the following days and it is expected the first people using the system will arrive by the end of the week.
Any arrival who fails to adhere to the rules when arriving from a current list of 33 countries will be fined €4,000 and face a possible month in prison.
The move was made to stop the spread of Covid-19 variants from countries such as Brazil and South Africa.
Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath said: "We've made a huge amount of progress on this issue and agreement has now been reached with the selected operator and in the next day or so Minister Stephen Donnelly will outline further details of the operational nature of the hotel quarantining, with a view to quarantining in hotels coming into effect later this week.
"In the next day or so, the minister for health will outline the full operational details with a view to hotel quarantining coming into effect in Ireland later this week, for people coming from currently what is 33 countries, and consideration will be given in line with the health advice to amending that list in the days ahead."
Gardaí will not be stationed at the hotels, it has been confirmed, after resistance from gardaí and the Department of Justice, but security will be provided by a private operator who will not have the power to arrest.
The Department of Defence and Defence Forces will provide planning and logistical support, with An Garda Síochána called only if there's a breach of any law or guidelines.
Amid the high new case numbers, the Cabinet will also discuss the loosening of the level 5 restrictions, with the resumption of construction and the withdrawal of the 5km exercise limit flagged as the most likely to be announced on April 5.
Mr McGrath said the Government will be focusing on activities that are "of low risk that can greatly improve well-being and mental health".
He said it would be "unhelpful to speculate on the detail" of what those activities will be, "because people want certainty and they will hear from the Government what the final decision is, but what we have signposted over a period of time now is that the areas where we will be focusing are areas of low risk, that will improve wellbeing and mental health because we recognise the huge challenge that all of this poses for people and for our society.
"Some weeks ago, we made it clear that the restrictions we had decided upon would remain in place until 5 April, so now, over the next week or so, we will be reassessing the situation in light of the prevailing public health advice and the situation with the virus."
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