By Jennifer McShane
27th Aug 2020
27th Aug 2020
Acting chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Ronan Glynn has confirmed that the lockdown in Kildare will remain in place, while pubs will not reopen early on Monday
Amid cases continuing to rise, the National Public Health Emergency (NPHET) met on Thursday to discuss whether pubs should be allowed to reopen on Monday, despite plans for them to remain closed until at least next week.
The news comes after a further 93 cases were announced on Thursday.
NPHET is to reportedly recommend that the government don’t re-open pubs next Monday. In terms of the restrictions that are in place, he explained public health experts, “felt that we really weren’t in a position to reopen the pubs at this point”, and that it “simply isn’t the appropriate time right now to open pubs”.
Kept under review
He added that it would be kept under review, saying that there was no date for the pubs to reopen, with a national effort needed to get Covid cases down.
“We want pubs to reopen, let’s be clear about that. We want pubs to reopen in a safe way. But since the end of June, we have seen a slow and steady deterioration of the profile of this disease in this country,” he said.
Meanwhile, the acting CMO said Covid-19 case numbers in Kildare have not stabilised sufficiently to allow for lockdown restrictions to be eased early.
While cases are stabilising, they are not yet at the point where lockdown can cease.
“In relation to Kildare, we did meet today and unfortunately although the situation seems to be improving and stabilising, it hasn’t improved or stabilised to the extent that we would need,” he said. “It still has the highest 14-day incidence in the country, it still has the highest 7-day incidence in the country. So we will continue to monitor it very closely.”
However, positively, he stressed that measures were working in Kildare and added that as soon as things could be lifted, they would be.
“We want people to be able to continue to do the vast majority of things they did before we ever heard of #Covid19. But we need people to do those things in a safer and slightly different way than they would have done them previously,” Acting CMO Dr @ronan_glynn says pic.twitter.com/x1YvzAagW8
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) August 27, 2020
“…On the positive side I suppose what I would say is that, over the past week about just about 10% of cases in Kildare are community transmission, which again highlights that the measures that are there, albeit tough, are having precisely the effect we would want. Which is to limit and prevent onward spread. ”
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