Increasing number of Covid-19 cases outside of locked-down counties ‘a concern’
COUNTIES outside Kildare, Laois and Offaly should take heed of public health advice following a rise in cases outside the locked-down counties, acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn has said.
Dr Glynn said that the increasing number of Covid19 cases reported over recent days as well as those that are linked to community transmission is a “concern”.
Yesterday, the Department of Health reported 40 additional confirmed Covid-19 cases in Ireland, and one more death.
There are now a total of 26,838 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland and 1,774 coronavirus-related deaths.
Of the cases notified, 12 are in Dublin, 11 in Kildare, seven are in Offaly, and the rest of the cases are in counties Clare, Donegal, Limerick, Meath, Roscommon, Tipperary and Wicklow.
Nineteen are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks, or are close contacts of a confirmed case and 13 cases have been identified as community transmission.
At a Covid-19 briefing last night, Dr Glynn said: “It is a concern that we have community transmission.
“The overall proportion has stayed relatively stable or in fact perhaps even decreased a little, given the intensive work that’s ongoing around following up cases linked to the clusters that we know about.
“The absolute number of cases, which have been defined as community transmission has gone up as part of the overall rise in cases over the past couple of weeks. We are keeping it under review. What’s of at least as much concern is the increase in the number of cases.
“We’re seeing a number of other counties where we are seeing an increase in cases and so, very understandably, the message is centred around Kildare, Laois and Offaly, but really, we need to reiterate to people across the country to follow the advice.”
Speaking about schools reopening at the end of August,
Dr Glynn said schoolchildren contracting Covid-19 when they return to the classroom was “inevitable”, but symptoms are likely to be mild.
Dr Glynn said schools are not a zero-risk environment but the risk of outbreaks occurring in classrooms has to be balanced against the need for children to receive an education.
“I hope there aren’t clusters but as I have said here previously, I think there will be clusters, there will be cases.
“It’s virtually inevitable because this is an infectious disease that spreads when people congregate, but everything is a balance of risk.”
When asked if he has any words to reassure parents who are concerned about sending their children back to school, Dr Glynn said some children will get the virus but that many children suffer mild symptoms or none at all.
“There will be a proportion of children who are diagnosed with Covid as there has been to date,” he said.
“The first piece of reassurance I’d give parents is the vast majority of children who are diagnosed with this disease suffer at most very mild symptoms.
“In fact we believe that many children who contract Covid in fact have no symptoms at all.
“The second thing I’d say is that we’re not powerless, parents aren’t powerless, children aren’t powerless against this.
“There are many things we can do to reduce the risk of transmission and we need to really focus on that over the coming weeks.”
He said that some schools might need to shut if an outbreak occurs. “There won’t be a blanket approach that says close every school once there’s a case,” Dr Glynn said.
“There may be schools that need to close. The hope is if you do have a case in a class, hopefully, in terms of close contracts it will only be the other children, for example, that might be defined as close contacts and will have to restrict their movements.”