TÁNAITSE LEO VARADKAR has said the government’s new colour-coded system to replace the current roadmap is still being developed.
The new system is being designed to allow the country live with Covid-19 over the coming six months.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said the new system would have four colours or statuses – red, orange, yellow and blue – and would allow people know “where we’re at on any given day.”
It’s envisaged that different areas around the country could have different colours at a given day depending on instances of Covid-19.
Speaking this morning at the launch of a €12 million Enterprise Ireland fund for enterprise centres around the country, Varadkar said that no further detail on the colour-coded system had yet been agreed.
“There is no new plan yet. The government is developing a new plan for the next couple of months, ” the Tánaise and Business Minister said.
Remember, when the pandemic started, we had a plan which we published to deal with Covid, and that was superseded by a new plan to reopen the country And we got to Phase Three of that, we didn’t quite get to Phase Four but it got us to where we are now where the economy is largely reopened and the virus is largely largely suppressed.
“We’re now developing a new plan by which we can live with the virus for the next couple of months and respond to clusters and outbreaks as they occur. But at this stage really it’s just the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) and the government departments and bodies who can input into that.
“There’s no draft document as yet and I’d prefer to have that agreed by government before telling you what’s in it because there’s always a risk that it may change,” he added.
Phase Four
Last week the government announced that Phase Four would not be proceeding as planned on 10 August and would be pushed back until at least 31 August.
Phase Four involves the reopening of pubs and an increase in the number of people that can attend events.
Asked today whether the new system means Phase Four is effectively being replaced, the Tánaiste said that “some work is being done” on replacing the current roadmap but that it remains the plan until a new one is announced.
The Tánaiste added that a so-called ‘red list’ of countries is being discussed but that nothing concrete has been proposed.
“The Cabinet will meet on 28 August and will make a decision on that day whether or not we can move to Phase Four and that would involve obviously pubs and changes to rules around outdoor gatherings,” he said.
Some work is being done to replace our existing roadmap, but that’s just work that’s being done. It’s only in development and hasn’t been agreed by Cabinet and the same thing applies to a red list, that is something that’s being talked about but no proposals have been brought to Cabinet, let alone a list. The roadmap is the roadmap until there’s a new one.
Yesterday, it was announced that there was to be a localised lockdown in Auckland following New Zealand’s first locally transmitted coronavirus infections in 102 days.
Referring to this development, Varadkar says he believes the correct approach to Covid-19 is to minimise infections because elimination of the virus is “not possible”.
“The aim from day one, and it is the right aim in my view is to flatten the curve. To reduce the virus to such a level that we don’t see millions of people getting infected and we don’t get into a situation whereby our health service and our hospitals and our ICUs are overwhelmed,” he said.
“The strategy is to slow and minimise the virus to get as close to zero as we can in terms of cases, before recognising that that is not possible and hasn’t proven possible even in the most remote places in the world.”
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