'Quite a bit' of Covid still in the community: Cork GP with no cases in five weeks urges caution 

“It’s easy to think ‘sure things aren’t too bad near me, I haven’t heard of much Covid around'. But Covid is there," said Dr O'Connor. File picture

A Cork GP has urged caution despite not having a positive Covid-19 case in the past five weeks.

Dr Nuala O’Connor, who is Covid-lead for the Irish College of General Practitioners, called on people to enjoy St Patrick’s Day safely as there is still “quite a bit” of the virus in the country.

“In our practise, we haven’t had a Covid case positive for the last five weeks,” the Douglas based GP told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

“It’s easy to think ‘sure things aren’t too bad near me, I haven’t heard of much Covid around’.

“But Covid is there. The virus hasn’t changed. If we give this virus an opportunity to resurge it certainly will do.” 

With the weather being good for St Patrick’s Day, she urged people to be careful.

Health officials and the Taoiseach have urged people to stay at home today, and avoid house parties or congregating.

Micheál Martin told the Irish Examiner  yesterday: “I am asking people to enjoy a safe St Patrick's Day from a Covid perspective. It's very important that people avoid social gathering, congregation of any sort, given the state of play in relation to the virus itself. We are dealing with a variant that spreads far more easily.” 

Dr O’Connor added: "This virus loves when people get together, particularly indoors and I think we’ve all heard of people planning to get together indoors.

“We’ve been hearing about playdates for children. Sometimes parents think that [the children] are together in school and that it’s no harm getting a few of them together.” 

Dr O’Connor reiterated that the country is still in Level 5 and urged people to comply with the restrictions.

“Things are going largely in the right direction,” she said, adding that at the moment people need to focus on staying apart to stay safe.

The GP said it is a “concern” that some of the public’s adherence to the restrictions appears to be fraying.

“We know that when people started to socialise at Christmas among families and friends, this virus absolutely took off. And that could happen again.”

Dr O’Connor said that the appeal was for people to enjoy St Patrick's Day safely saying that if people are going out to get some exercise, they should not stand around or gather in groups.

The medic said that the virus hasn’t changed adding that there is more of the transmissible UK variant in the country now.

“The case numbers unfortunately in the last two weeks, they seem to have stalled in terms of the reduction," she said.

“There’s still quite a bit of Covid disease in the community. And we’ve had one or two signals from the GP data in the last week or so that are concerning.

“Our GP community tracker, again we can see that the number of cases meeting the criteria for Covid when people present with symptoms, that seems to have stalled. The reduction is not continuing.” 

Dr O’Connor highlighted data from the GP Sentinel Practice Network, which tracks anyone presenting with symptoms of a flu-like illness, who are tested for Covid.

She said that the amount of people presenting with symptoms of flu-like illness has not increased but the number of positive Covid cases has gone from 9.7% to 13.9% over the course of the last two weeks.

Dr O'Connor said there were "some signals of concern there".