Ireland has ‘short time’ to turn Covid-19 numbers around
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The next two weeks will be crucial for Ireland's attempts to halt the spread of Covid-19, but the country has a "very short time" to turn deteriorating numbers around, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer has said.
Dr Ronan Glynn said Ireland again needs to halt a Covid-19 surge after five new deaths and 456 confirmed cases were announced.
There has now been a total of 68,356 cases in Ireland since the beginning of the pandemic, with 1,984 deaths.
Dr Glynn said that the previous "positive trajectory" is turning in the wrong direction.
"Unfortunately, the very positive trajectory that we had been reporting in recent weeks has, at best, stalled and according to a number of indicators is now deteriorating."
The Deputy CMO said that it has been hoped to get the daily cases down to below 100 on December 1, when the current Level 5 lockdown is due to expire.
"We're seeing widespread cases across the country in a range of different settings.
"We're seeing a number of outbreaks in workplaces and as we've seen throughout, a high number of small family and household clusters.
"From our perspective, it’s actually more concerning that we can’t pinpoint any one behaviour or any one group.
"We now have a short period of time in which to turn this around."
He added, however, that Irish people could not focus beyond their actions in the next few days or look to Christmas.
"If we keep focusing on three and four and five weeks time, we take our eye off what we need to be doing today.
"It is hard enough for people to do what needs to be done today as well as having to worry or be concerned about what might happen in four or five weeks time.
"I am fully aware of what's coming. We all want to enjoy a good Christmas."
"One of the biggest single detriments to our progress is an overt focus on where we might be in six weeks’ time.
"We don’t know where we’ll be in two weeks’ time… What dictates that is what people do today, tomorrow and the next day.
”The last thing we want is more people getting sick, the last thing we want is more people in hospital, the last thing we want is further deaths.
"We really have a short period of time in which to turn this around. We've two weeks until December 1, and I would implore people to focus on the basics.
"What dictates the course of this disease is what we do as families and as individuals."