Harris ‘optimistic’ about easing rules

THE Minister for Health said it will become clear later this week whether the easing of restrictions has led to more cases of Covid-19.

The State is entering the second week in easing its lockdown laws which saw the reopening of a number of retail stores and some sporting activities.

Simon Harris (pictured) said yesterday he is feeling ‘optimistic’, but he warned that the public cannot ‘get sloppy’ and urged people to continue following public health advice. He also told the 2fm Breakfast Show the advice around keeping a two-metre distance is also under review.

A senior civil servant told yesterday’s Government Covid-19 briefing that there is ‘a lot of discussion and speculation’ about whether some of the public health advice and the roadmap schedule of reopening will change.

Liz Canavan said that the current advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control is that people should physically distance by two metres. ‘That remains the public health advice from the Government and similar is in place in countries around the world,’ Ms Canavan added. ‘Any changes to the current restrictive social distancing measure must be slow and incremental. We need to know how we are getting on phase by phase. ‘ The approach to reducing measures will evolve as more information becomes available and in line with international learning and experience, in particular from countries ahead of Ireland in terms of their outbreak.’