'We must take action immediately to prevent an almost unimaginable scenario'
As the cabinet bring in new Level 5 restrictions, the authorities have been notified of a huge increase in Covid-19 cases - with almost 100 cases reported today in Meath.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 13 additional deaths related to Covid-19, bringing to 2,226 the death toll from the disease in the Republic. The total number of cases in Meath 3,969.
As of midnight Tuesday, December 29, the HPSC has been notified of 1,718 confirmed cases of Covid-19. Of those cases notified today 96 were in Co Meath and 66 in Cavan.
A further breakdown of today's figures nationally show: 853 are men / 863 are women; 66% are under 45 years of age; the median age is 34 years old.
As of 2pm today 455 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 37 are in ICU. There have been 60 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said; “The reproduction number remains very high and is currently estimated at 1.6 – 1.8. The growth rate is estimated to be 7-10% per day with a doubling time of 7-10 days.
“We must take action immediately to prevent an almost unimaginable scenario, where case numbers in 7 to 10 days time are twice what they are today. Stay home.”
Mitigation phase
“Ireland is no longer in a containment phase and is once again in a mitigation phase," said Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health. "Given the current levels of transmission in the community, every individual should consider themselves potentially infectious.
“It is essential that we all limit our contacts to our own household now, restrict our movements and do not give COVID-19 any further opportunities to spread.
“Everyone needs to stay at home other than for essential work or care. This is not the time to be visiting other houses.”
Tonight, An Taoiseach Micheal Martin said controls had to be put in place to protect the health service.
"Families will have an opportunity to minimise their contacts by the time children return to school," he added.
"We are all weary from the bottom of our hearts of this disease and the impact it's had on our lives.
"The next month as we face into these strictest controls in the depth of winter, is going to be very tough on everyone.
"But after a year of the most extraordinary effort by the most talented scientific minds on earth, we have safe and effective vaccines... producing this life saving intervention and we have a global supply chain delivering it round the world.
"For the first time since this terrible disease landed on our shores, we truly have an end in sight.... In January I'm confident tens of thousands of our healthcare workers and our most vulnerable will have been vaccinated."
"We will rebuild society," he said. "We will come to terms with this crisis and make sense of the trauma we've all been through in due course.
"We will do all these things and start them in the coming year because the vaccine exists but right now we must stay at home and eliminate contacts to make sure that as many of our people as possible are still with us to enjoy the better, brighter days, that are up ahead."
Green leader Eamon Ryan said: "It's going to be a difficult thing but it's the right thing to do now."
The new Level 5 Restrictions in brief...
- No visitors except for essential family reasons or those in your support bubble
- Stay at home except for travel for work, education or other essential purposes, or to take exercise within 5km of home
- Essential retail only from close of business on 31 December
- Primary and secondary schools to re-open on 11 January
- Work from home unless working in essential health, social care or other essential service that cannot be done from home
- Maximum of 25 guests up to and including 2nd January; maximum of six guests from 3rd January.
- Maximum of 10 mourners at funerals
At Level 5, the public health risk means that you will be asked to stay at home, except for travel for work, education or other essential purposes, or to take exercise within 5km of home. There will be no gatherings other than small numbers at funerals and weddings.
See the new measures that come into effect from Mignight
Speaking before the meeting, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said very serious decisions had to be taken, adding that the situation is continuing to deteriorate.
"We are seeing a very rapid increase, an ongoing increase in cases, we are also seeing a very rapid increase in hospitalisations," he said on his way into the meeting.