Republic ponders restricting non-essential travel from outside UK and EU
PROPOSALS on how to restrict non-essential travel from countries outside the UK and European Union are being prepared for the Irish Government, the Republic’s Health Minister has said.
Stephen Donnelly admitted he is concerned about high rates of coronavirus in some places, and said options will be finalised “as soon as possible”.
Yesterday 68 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the Republic, according to the National Public Health Emergency Team, down from the 174 announced on Saturday. The total number of infections in the country is 26,712.
Northern Ireland does not publish case figures at the weekend.
Mr Donnelly said that the number of travel-related cases in Ireland remains small but added that the risk is increasing.
Writing on Twitter, he said:
“Many are asking about travel/ tourists coming into Ireland from countries with high Covid rates.
“My department is preparing options for Government on how to restrict non-essential travel from third countries (outside EU/UK) with high rates of Covid. I am concerned about high rates in some places.
“These options will be finalised as soon as possible. While travel-related cases here remain small, some countries are seeing a rapid rise in cases so the risk is increasing.
“Once proposals are finalised they will be presented to Government for discussion.”
The ‘green list’ of countries that could be travelled to and from without movement restrictions has already been shortened from the previous 15 to 10.
The countries removed from the list were Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino.
Of the 68 cases announced in the Republic last night, 82% are under 45 years old.
Forty-one are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case, while two cases have been identified as community transmission.
Nineteen of the cases are in Kildare, 17 in Dublin, 15 in Offaly, 12 in Laois and five in Donegal.
Acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said: “We continue to see cases linked to the outbreaks in counties where additional public health measures have been introduced. This was
expected and we will continue to monitor closely.”
It was announced on Friday night that Kildare, along with counties Laois and Offaly, will face further lockdown restrictions for the next fortnight following a spate of cases.
O’brien’s Fine Foods, a meat processing plant at Timahoe in Co Kildare, halted production last week after dozens of workers tested positive for coronavirus and will remain closed for two weeks.
In a statement yesterday,
O’briens Fine Foods said it wished to reaffirm that in line with public health guidance, normal operations at its Timahoe plant will not resume for the 14-day incubation period.
It stopped production on Wednesday evening after a number of workers tested positive.
Some 87 workers had tested positive for the virus by Friday.
The company said: “In all cases, the level of asymptomatic infectivity appears to be very high.”