Relaxed restrictions next week looking increasingly unlikely

 

The Chief Medical Officer has given his strongest indication yet that Covid-19 restrictions won’t be lifted, as planned, next Tuesday.
The National Public Health Emergency Team is due to advise Government tomorrow about whether any measures can be eased.
Tomorrow’s meeting of the country’s top public health doctors will decide the Cabinet’s position on whether any of the restrictions can be lifted from Tuesday.
However, the Chief Medical Officer has given the strongest hint yet at his daily press briefings that he won’t be recommending any easing of the measures.
Dr. Tony Holohan said as things stand, he wouldn’t be advising anything be lifted next week.
31 more people with Covid-19 have died, bringing the death toll to 1,190, while we now have over 20,000 confirmed cases.
The worry among the doctors in charge is that the numbers in intensive care and hospital beds is just too high to ease restrictions and the healthcare system would come under severe pressure if the number of infections rose quickly.