WHY 90 MINUTES AND WHY €9?

INFECTIOUS disease experts have poured scorn over the 90-minute time limit ahead of the reopening of pubs, saying ‘it doesn’t make sense’.

The rule is based on guidance from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) but when the asked for the reasoning behind it yesterday, we were told to direct our questions to the Department of Tourism. We then sent questions to the Department of Tourism but received no response. Fáilte Ireland released a statement late last night saying the 90 minutes is being extended to 105 minutes for pubs.

The Mail contacted the Department of Health to get the National Public Health Emergency Team’s view on the plans but were told to direct questions to the HPSC.

It has certainly left infectious disease experts scratching their heads with UCC Professor Gerry Killeen saying he had absolutely no idea why that limit was chosen.

The Research Chair in Applied Pathogen Ecology Professor told the Mail: ‘It doesn’t make sense to me. Why would you be safer after 90 minutes than after two hours? I don’t know.’

Consultant in Infectious Disease in the Mater Hospital Dr Jack Lambert said that there seems to be a lot of arbitrary decisions being made that are ‘not necessarily based in science’.

‘I don’t know why, I can’t read the minds of the Department of Health or the HSE,’ he said. ‘There is data that the longer you are in a room with someone who has any infectious disease it has an accumulative effect, how they came up with one and a half hours beats me.’

Speaking on RTÉ’s News, Fáilte Ireland’s Accommodation Development Manager Tara Kerry said that her organisation had received guidance from the HPSC but were seeking clarification on some points.

She confirmed-orior to the late-night statement – that the 90-minute rule is in the guidance but they are seeking clarification because they ‘do not know what 90 minutes has been founded on’.

‘We’re advocating that that goes to two hours at a minimum,’ she said.