Stephen Donnelly today warned Ireland could exit Level Five restrictions on a region-by-region basis.
The Health Minister’s comments raise the possibility that some counties might be stuck in Level Five – with the strictest level of restrictions – well into December.
Mr Donnelly said the manner of Ireland’s exit from Level Five will “depend on what the situation is.
“The Government and NPHET will look at it carefully and they look at a range of factors.
“They look at the level of cases, the rate of growth of cases, the positivity rates, the R number and also they look at it county by county and region by region.”
Rates of Covid-19 have varied wildly in different parts of the country over recent weeks.
Co Tipperary, for instance, has the lowest 14-day incidence rate (per 100,000 population) of any county in the country, with a rate of 116.6.
And if the Premier County is likely to be leading the pack when it comes to exiting Level Five, then Co Wicklow might not be far behind.
Wicklow is Ireland’s next-best county in terms of its 14-day incidence rate, with 121.5 cases per 100,000.
In third is Co Waterford – a county that has pulled off a remarkable turnaround in recent weeks when it comes to the prevalence of the virus.
But only one other county – Co Kilkenny – has managed to keep its 14-day incidence rate under 200.
For the rest, the situation is different shades of worrying, with wild fluctuations between counties.
Cavan, which yesterday passed 1,000 cases per 100,000 over the last fortnight, is the country’s worst-affected county when it comes to the transmission of Covid-19.
It’s the league table nobody wants to find themselves at the top of, and if Mr Donnelly’s warning is to be believed, it seems likely that the Lake County might be subject to stricter regulations than the rest of the country after December 1.
Co Meath is similarly stricken, with a two-week incidence rate of 652.7, while Co Monaghan rounds off the worst trio of counties in the country with a rate of 389.3 cases per 100,000.
