Full Lockdown: Here’s what we know about new restrictions set to be announced today
We can expect an announcement this afternoon.
Ireland is braced for a nationwide tightening of Level 5 coronavirus restrictions, with tougher measures necessary to slow a deadly third wave of the disease.
With 17 deaths and 5,325 cases confirmed last night, Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan said hospitals are now “experiencing a considerable surge”.
The Cabinet will meet today to finalise plans to close schools until February, shut down non-essential construction sites and ban click-and-collect shopping for the next four weeks.
New rules are also likely to require passengers landing in Irish airports to have a negative Covid-19 test completed within the 72 hours before their arrival. The 5km from home travel rule is expected to remain unchanged.
This morning, HSE chief Paul Reid revealed hospitalisations have now exceeded the peak of the first wave:
With 921people in hospital, we’ve now exceeded the peak level of the 1st wave (881).75 in ICU. Healthy people are getting very sick. Everyone gets how serious this is now. Let’s all do what’s needed, turn this around, save lives, whilst the vaccine arrives. We have to. @HSELive
— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) January 6, 2021
“With 921 people in hospital, we’ve now exceeded the peak level of the 1st wave (881).75 in ICU.” he tweeted.
“Healthy people are getting very sick. Everyone gets how serious this is now. Let’s all do what’s needed, turn this around, save lives, whilst the vaccine arrives.”
‘It worked last spring’
“We can turn this around quickly if we stick to the measures we know worked last spring,” Dr Holohan said.
“We have seen some early progress in that the average number of contacts per case has been dropping in recent days – but we need to continue this effort to limit as much as we can our contact with other people in the days and weeks ahead.
“If we all stay home and keep to the public health advice, we can bring COVID-19 back under control – which ultimately will protect our essential services such as Health and Education and most importantly save lives.”
