The World Health Organisation has detailed what it believes will be an effective way of making it through the winter without any major Covid surges.
Health experts have fairly well ruled out a national lockdown for Ireland, and say that local restrictions should be imposed in areas where a surge occurs.
As hospital and ICU admissions continue to fluctuate, Dr. David Nabarro said the spike in cases will likely be seen for several more weeks and will only “slow if there is a conscious effort by people” to lower transmission.
Speaking to Newstalk, Dr. Nabarro explained that; “There may be some locally imposed restrictions, and that’s what I consider to be the right way of going about things when you have a big spike in cases and hospital services are being overwhelmed.
“I don’t see that as something to be worried about: I see that as the correct response to a surge in Covid cases.”
He said that thanks to Ireland's tracing system, officials generally know where the outbreaks are coming from and can act on those individual areas.
Speaking about the ongoing surge, he said: “I think the rate of increase will only slow if there is a conscious effort by people everywhere to themselves contribute to reducing transmission.”
It seems there is more and more confidence around a lockdown-free festive season this year after Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tony Holohan also said he’s "optimistic" that we will avoid any further restrictions.
Minister Eamon Ryan said on Wednesday that he doesn’t think restrictions will be reimposed this Christmas, which the Chief Medical Officer also backed up.
Dr. Holohan said: “We all share his view of things, none of us wants to see us being in that situation.
“We do have it within our gift, we’ve shown it in the past as a country that our collective behaviour particularly in response to surges of infection that we are seeing at the moment, can turn around and change.
“If we can get to that point, we hope and are optimistic that we can achieve a change in transmission so that we won’t have to do any further in terms of measures.”
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