IRELAND'S LEADING epidemiologist has said Christmas can be saved if the correct procedures are taken now.
At a press conference yesterday, both Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan and Chair of NPHET's Epidemiological Modelling Team Professor Philip Nolan said Ireland can enjoy a relatively normal Christmas if cases begin dropping.
An additional five deaths related to Covid-19 were announced at yesterday's briefing, all of which took place in October, bringing the death toll in Ireland to 1,1816.
611 new cases were also confirmed, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases to 39,584.
Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said:
"All key indicators of the disease have deteriorated further in the three days since the last meeting of NPHET on Sunday 4 October. COVID-19 is spreading in our community in a very worrying manner. We have to break these chains of transmission."
He added, however, that the country could get through Christmas "very well" if cases drop to around 50 cases per day by mid-December.
'We know what Christmas is like here': Dr Tony Holohan assured the public that we can have a relatively normal Christmas if coronavirus numbers drop by mid-December"It's in our minds, we haven't had an expressed conversation about Christmas, but each of us is conscious-- we all live in this country, we know what it's like here."
He warned that the R number could rise during Christmas as people will want to gather with friends and family, and acknowledged that as a country, we may "not be as adherent to some of the rules as we should be".
"Christmas will be a challenging time, what we have to try and ensure is we get the disease as low as possible before that," he concluded.
Professor Philip Nolan agreed that "we can still save Christmas, I presume, if we do the right thing over the next three weeks".
It is the responsibility of each individual to follow public health advice and Level 3 restrictions in order to get the numbers of cases to stabilise and subsequently drop, he advised.
