NEW COVID-19 CLAMPDOWN
Masks mandatory from Monday ++ Gardaí out in force at weekend amid spike in cases ++ Flights arrive daily from ‘Covid hotbeds’ in US
MANDATORY rules on masks, including a poten- tial stint in jail, are part of a new clampdown on Covid-19 starting Monday.
And medical experts say foreign travel is the greatest threat to our health, as they raised alarm over the number of flights coming here from the ‘Covid hotbeds’ of the United States, and tens of thousands of passengers are flying in and out of Dublin Airport alone, in just one week.
As the number of Covid-19 cases rose dramatically by 25 yesterday, gardaí are preparing to take a harder line on pubs and their patrons not obeying the social distancing measures this weekend.
At first, they will engage, educate and encourage, senior gardaí have warned, but if they have to, they will enforce.
Extra gardaí will also be on streets nationwide after 26 potential breaches leaders are taking a tougher line on safety measures as fears of a looming second wave of the virus grow. Ministers and the public health
by publicans last weekend. And Taoiseach Micheál Martin has announced that from Monday the wearing of face masks on public transport will be mandatory. People who do not comply face fines of up to €2,500 and/or six months in prison.
And HSE chief Paul Reid took a firmer tone, urging young people to ‘get your act together’.
‘Just a reminder... we are still living with a deadly virus. If you are younger, you are NOT immune. If it doesn’t kill you, your transmission could cost the life of someone else. Let’s all get our act together this weekend,’ he tweeted.
And the crisis has been heightened since the Stormont administration in the North has taken a more lax view on foreign travel, and has removed mandatory self-isolation from a list of 50 countries.
With 25 new cases yesterday, their are growing fears that flights from America will add to the threat of a Second Wave of Covid-19 hitting here and forcing us into another lockdown.
This follows the resumption of flights this week from Texas, one of the ‘hotbeds’ of the virus in the US, where some politicians and TV presenters are jeering at the public health advice.
professionals here are clearly saying that the rise in cases this week are being caused by travel, putting increasing doubt over what the Government will do in nine days time, July 20, when ministers and public health advisers are expected to reveal the ‘green list’ of countries deemed safe to travel to and from.
This week the R number – that indicates the amount of people that one infected person passes Covid-19 on to – rose to at least one. Put simply, when this figure is below one, the number of cases is probably falling, when it is above one, the number is rising.
The fact that it has risen indicates that the huge success of the lockdown is diminishing as the country opens up, and if it continues we may face more restrictions on our freedom.
Figures obtained by the Irish Daily Mail show that close to 7,000 people a day have flown out of Dublin Airport during the first week of this month. Data from the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) show that from July 1 to July 7, inclusive, 48,706 people flew out of the airport, and 25,493 flew into it. While this is a 90% reduction in passengers from the same time last year, according to the DAA, the public health advisers have said that foreign travel brings with it a massive threat of a second wave.
Yesterday, American Airlines resumed flights into Dublin from Dallas, Texas, one of the worst Covid-19 hit states in the US.
One flight touched down yesterday, and the airline is planning three out, and three in, every week, for the coming weeks.
And that was just one of four American flights in yesterday, with others coming from New York, Chicago, and Newark.
Professor of Experimental ImmuHealth nology at Trinity College Dublin, Kingston Mills, told the Irish Daily Mail of his worries about US flights, and in particular from Texas, what he called the ‘hotbed of Covid’.
While the medical experts are urging the Government to act now, before these flights increase the threat of the virus here, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said yesterday that the Government will not deal with the travel plan until Monday week,
July 20. He said there were only 16 passengers on the flight from Texas that arrived yesterday.
However, that has not allayed the fears of health experts as cases rose this week due to international travel. And Labour’s transport spokesman Duncan Smith warned that passengers from areas where Covid-19 is out of control should not be let in without testing.
‘I’m not confident the Govern
ment are on top of this Green Bridge policy [to safe countries]. There were 30,000 new cases of Coved-19 yesterday in Texas alone, where the virus seems to be beyond control,’ he said.
Prof. Mills said: ‘It [Texas] wouldn’t be top of my priority list of places that I would like to see flights coming from because of the numbers there in the midwest [of the US].’ He said that it would be reasonable for everyone returning from the US to isolate for 14 days ‘but the problem is that it is not mandatory’.
The high rate of travel-related new cases of Covid-19 is ‘worrying’, he said.
After 15 of the 23 new cases in Ireland on Thursday were directly or indirectly linked to travel, he said: ‘That is very worrying, that is more than 50%. That is what a lot of us have been warning would happen. It was inevitable if you didn’t have restrictions.’
However, yesterday the Taoiseach still insisted: ‘There is concern about travel-related incidents around the spread of the virus. Our approach to date has been very cautious and we will be dealing with that on July 20. We will take further advice and monitor the situation. We’ve developed the methodology and are working on a range of measures before we announce any green list in relation to travel. ‘But we will be taking a very cautious approach to it because the overarching priority for us, moving to the end of the summer, is to get the schools open.’
The director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory Dr Cillian de Gascun said that the return of Covid-19 restrictions is a ‘realistic’ prospect should the number of cases grow.
He told Newstalk Breakfast: ‘We are in a crucial period now over the next five to seven days to see what the true impact of that June 29 [Phase Three] date was. The message we want to get across is the virus hasn’t gone away. We need to follow health measures and we still need to act as if any individual may have the virus.’
‘The US is the biggest worry’