Holohan 'strongly advises' only three households should visit another home over Christmas 

Nphet advises that a raft of new measures should be implemented as soon as possible and should remain in place until at least January 9, to prevent a further surge of Covid-19 during the festive period. Picture: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie

Dr Tony Holohan, the chief medical officer, has “strongly advised” that only three households should visit another home over Christmas in a stark letter to Government.

A letter from Dr Holohan to the Government, seen by the Irish Examiner, states that currently seven people a day are dying from Covid-19 and advises that people should curtail celebrations and take care when mixing with people aged over 50 who have not received their booster vaccines.

The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) advises that a raft of new measures should be implemented as soon as possible and remain in place until at least January 9, to prevent a further surge of Covid-19 during the festive period.

The letter advises that nightclubs should close and strict social distancing put in place for all indoor hospitality (all bars and restaurants, including hotels), returning to those measures that were in place before October 22.

This includes:

• Table service only
• Maximum of six people per table 
• No multiple table bookings and no intermingling between tables 
• Customers should wear masks at all times when not seated at a table 
• Nphet also recommends that attendance at indoor events, including entertainment, cultural, community, and sporting events, should be no more than 50% of the venue’s capacity and all events should be seated only, while masks should be worn at all times, including during the performance/event, and only removed if eating or drinking
• The Covid certificate system should be extended to other high-risk settings, including gyms and hotels.

"There should continue to be strong, clear communications to the public in relation to the importance of fully adhering to all basic public health measures, including working from home where possible," states the letter.

"In light of ongoing very high disease incidence and the emergence of, and uncertainties associated with, the Omicron variant, the booster vaccination programme should be accelerated to the greatest extent possible.

Nphet believes that these are a targeted set of measures focused on those activities and settings that are likely to have the biggest impact over the coming weeks, while maintaining as much economic and societal activity as possible.

The modelling group IEMAG has revised models to take into account the extension of booster vaccination to those aged 16 and older and primary vaccination to those aged 5-11 years and has examined scenarios with different levels of effective social contact over the Christmas period.

"The scenarios show that if Omicron becomes dominant over the coming weeks and is associated with even moderate reductions in vaccine effectiveness and increases in transmissibility, the risk of a surge in disease is high to very high, and any such surge is amplified by increased effective social contact over the Christmas period," the letter states.

"The more pessimistic (but plausible) scenarios show 750 to 1,300 people requiring general hospital care and 200-400 people requiring critical care, or 950-1700 in total requiring hospital care, in January 2022."

A total of 31,767 cases have been reported in the seven days to December 1, which is a 2% increase from last week.

The 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population has increased to 1,320 and the five-day rolling average of daily cases is 4,477 as of Friday, a 4% decrease from that reported at the last Nphet meeting on November 25.

Incidence remains high across all age groups and is highest in those aged 5-12 years.

Due to the current surge, the HSE test and trace system is now "operating at surge capacity and is under severe pressure", according to the letter.

As of December 1, there 117 patients with Covid-19 in ICU, with only 13 critical care beds available nationally, with no critical care beds available in the Dublin region and in a number of other hospitals nationally.