The Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan has told The Last Word on Today FM that he's "still hopeful" that more restrictions won't be required to deal with increased Covid-19 transmission and increases in hospital and ICU admissions.
Yesterday, the Government announced a midnight curfew for the hospitality industry which will begin from tomorrow, while there will also be a change to work-from-home messaging from Friday.
"Nobody wants to go back there, let me tell you," said Dr Tony Holohan on The Last Word.
“Nobody wants to go back there” he says on the possibility of lockdown.
Says people need to redouble efforts, and we’re in a different situation to last year due to vaccines.
He says they’ll keep monitoring the situation with the virus.
— Ben Finnegan (@_BenFinnegan) November 17, 2021
"I don't want to find myself in a position going back to Government and recommending to the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues that this is something we need to do," he said talking about the imposition of restrictions.
"We're in a very different situation to the Christmas period we went into last year. We have our vaccinated population - vaccines have been rolled out. That alone is a very significant difference. But it hasn't completely protected us from the significant effects on hospitals and healthcare systems general with this level of infection.
Would like to share the updated modelling @PhilipNolan_MU and NPHET gave to Government earlier this week. By not doing anything, the most optimistic scenario could see ~5,000 cases a day at peak according to our modellers. pic.twitter.com/NAVAtuXNQ8
— Stephen Donnelly (@DonnellyStephen) November 17, 2021
"Right now, we'll keep monitoring the disease and the impact of the disease. We'll continue to assess what we need to do.
"I'm still hopeful that we won't need other interventions - economic and social restrictions. Although, I can see colleagues in other countries of Europe, are now recommending those and they're being instituted in many other parts of Europe. I'm still hopeful with our high levels of vaccination - if we can get back to the basics, we'll never have to go back to [more restrictions].
"We don't always see what's around the next corner so we have to be ready to respond, and if it became necessary to say something that we'd rather not say - by way of advice to Government then we'll do it, because that's our duty. But I'm still hopeful."
3,633 new cases of Covid-19 have been detected in Ireland today, while there were also 43 new deaths notified to the Department of Health over the past week.
Also speaking on The Last Word, former General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation Liam Doran issued a warning.
"We are in a very precarious situation now," he said
"Everybody has to wake up.
"Stop the social interactions they're doing because the health service, the ICU service, the A&E service simply cannot cope based on the potential tsunami coming its way - based upon Tony Holohan and the modeling that's been done."
