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THE ACTING CMO has said contact tracers are to start asking people who test positive for Covid-19 and who are believed to be community transmission cases about their visits to bars or restaurants in the period before their positive result.
After the National Public Health Emergency Team’s (NPHET) recent recommendation that bars and restaurants in Dublin stop serving customers indoors there were calls for officials to provide concrete evidence that transmission had been linked to these settings.
At the Oireachtas Covid-19 committee today, Microbiologist Professor Kirsten Schaffer said she was concerned that information about where cases originate is not available.
“I rang Public Health Ireland yesterday to inform myself more and to find out what the situation is at the moment. Currently, when a person is diagnosed with Covid-19, Public Health Ireland will ask them about the contacts they had in the preceding 48 hours. It will not ask where the individual thinks they have acquired the infection.
“It does not ask whether they have been to a restaurant or attended a house party. It does not have that information and neither do I.
However, it is crucial that we start trying to collect such information so we can show the data and use it to state the reasons why, for example, house parties with more than ten people attending are forbidden, and if it happens, then the Garda will be called and the house parties will be shut down.
“We need some data to argue with, and currently it is not there. I know from Germany, because such data is collected there, that increasing rates there are strongly associated with house parties and family gatherings, where people congregate and do not adhere to social distancing rules.”
At this evening’s Department of Health press conference, Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said plans are now being put in place to ensure this kind of questioning is included in the contact tracing system.
“This is an issue that many countries have faced and the majority of countries would not retrospectively contact trace every case because it’s an enormous workload and would significantly lengthen the process,” he said.
“But it needs to be done in at least a proportion of cases and there are plans being put in place to do that.”
Dr Glynn said this would be done in cases characterised as community transmission, where there is not an obvious link to another case. Currently around one in four cases are identified as community transmission.
He said there is clear evidence that certain environments are higher risk, such as indoor and poorly ventilated areas as well as settings in which people come together indoors for a prolonged period of time.
“And let’s be honest where people come together, consume alcohol and drop their guard, that increases risk,” he said.
“We’ve a situation tonight where we’ve almost 100 people in hospital, 16 in critical care units. Our doctors and nurses around the country are very concerned about the potential impact this is going to have on the provision of non-Covid healthcare.
“The last thing we want to see is this impacting again on our cancer services and all the other services that need to go on on a daily basis.
“We have choices to make. In that context we have to protect our priorities and at the moment unfortunately certain elements of our social lives are less important than others and we have to be honest with people about that.”
This evening Dr Una Fallon, director of public health, HSE Midlands, gave a number of examples she and her colleagues had come across as part of their work on complex contact tracing cases, many with large numbers involved.
In one case a factory worker who had minor symptoms asked a friend to give them a lift to a sporting event. At this event there were “lots of close contacts” and this resulted in two further cases – the friend who gave the lift and one other.
From those two cases, there were a further 19 cases, mainly linked to work and from those 19 cases a further five.
Dr Fallon said there were other outbreaks linked to family events such as funerals or communions.
“People may adhere to the guidance for the service but where there may be a meal afterwards with a number of tables, even though you’d have six to a table there would be association between the tables and co-mingling.”
In another case a sibling of a confirmed case went to a house party when they should have been restricting their movements and Dr Fallon said the “end point of that was more than 20 new cases”.
“The message is just because you know people and you’re out with them doesn’t mean you should drop your guard.”
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Now they’re to begin asking.
Jesus Christ..
@FecklessBear: Yep. But feckin late now. What a joke. muppets would have done a better job
@FecklessBear: Tell them the tmreality, I was in the local shop, went town on a bus, walked down a street with many people in it. Went to a clothes store, butchers, bakers, repair shop, garage, talked to the neighbour, got a haircut, went to a coffee shop, picked up the kid from school, dropped a cake to the mother in laws or some other relation.
Why only pubs and restaurants. What’s the agenda here. Closed for 6 months and no reason for the pub or restaurant to be the bad guy. Other than someone or many in NPHET have an anti social fetish. Whoever keeps driving this agenda needs to be investigated as to their bias here.
@PeeedOff: You got a lot done today
@Frank Higgins: and the day was only 30 minutes in at the stage he wrote the post
@PeeedOff: you missed the bit where alcohol impairs people’s judgement?
Seems like an obvious question to be asking….months ago.
What about cafes, shops, work places, churches, training, matches, gym, house parties – why have it so narrow and just asking about pubs and restaurants. Broaden it out and get more data on where transmission is occuring from new cases. And why is this just happening now…and not 6 months ago.
@Spbeak: I don’t think it’s the case but people could be forgiven for thinking there’s an agenda here!
@Joe: What agenda? Genuine question.
@Joe: yeah it’s either incompetence or by design – e.g. not asking allows powers that be to decide where the community origin could be versus having to make fact based decisions which do not align to their other agendas.
@Spbeak: I meant to add schools/colleges to that list also, definitely a driver.
@Bert Carolan: The agenda is to find a reason to justify why they treat the hospitality sector as they do. If you were in a pub in the last 2 weeks then the reason you have the virus is the pub. Not the other 100 social interactions.
@Spbeak: Pubs have been closed for the past 6 months, they only reopened on Monday. Most publicans are doing their best to follow the rules. It is up to the public to follow the rules also.
@Gere: Sorry I should have specified ‘dry’ pubs. Like the ones I have been visiting for the past few weeks for food and a drink.
The “wet” pubs open and a new question is asked. They can’t wait to close them down! I have a lot of sympathy for publicans. They’ve been cannon fodder the last few months!
@Owwwwnnnn: Seems like they want the ‘right’ answers to justify their decisions.
@michael: precisely. You’re supposed to ask where people have been in general, not to suggest answers.
@michael: took them 3 months to ask this question when restaurants have been open? Nah, doesn’t wash! No planning past lockdown, high fived each other for suppressing the virus and now it’s back once we reopen and the lads are dumbfounded! Blame everything and let NPHET call the shots so they think they can put their necks in the noose instead.
Have to say I thought Philip Nolan’s comment about this being an “academic exercise” was bizarre altogether. Academic in the sense that we learn more about how the virus spreads… sure… but that has obvious real world implications. Seems short sighted in the extreme that investigations like this weren’t part of the tracing process until now.
This is just ridiculous now.
If the evidence does not point to bars and restaurants NPHET will create it . Why not ask, did you go on a bus, do you have kids in school, did you attend a hospital appointment ? The only question that should be asked is: can you tell me a list of places where you have been in the last 14 days to the best of your recollection?
Talk about influencing people’s answer to suit and to insult a whole industry where people are struggling & laid off by also saying
“Struggling hospitality sector will not influence public health decisions”.
Time to dissolve NPHET.
@Isabel Oliveira: im 100% convinced without any doubt they have it in for pubs, as has been mentioned numerous times hardly any clusters, if any at all are attributed to pubs, but they are hell bent on trying to apportion the blame to pubs so they can say told you so, why can’t they just focus on where the clusters are coming from instead of the obsession with blaming pubs,something very sinister going on here.
@SB: agree. I’m not into conspiracies but I swear to god I have started to wonder lately what these people are playing at. Surely a group of people cannot be consistently inept, insulting the population, closing their eyes to to all the long term irreversible harm they’re causing to almost 5 million people.
Then they lie. On the other article there’s Nolan saying “ many young people will die” just to cause absolute deliberate fear in people. This is a crime against the population’s mental health and I don’t mean it metaphorically.
I know people who are on the verge of a nervous breakdown & depressed due to fear, others due to loneliness , unemployment. Some people haven’t left their houses since March. It’s just awful. It’s all beginning to make me really angry.
@SB: they’re covering for the complete lack of tracing that has been done. Small clusters should be less difficult to track and get the majority of contacts isolating. They’re taking turns blaming people and pubs.
@SB: the clusters judging by the age groups are coming from schools, is my opinion. 23 clusters in three weeks and I’m not saying that children should be off school , they need to be in school but that’s where it’s happening . That and food processing , care homes & hospitais.
@Isabel Oliveira: absolutely agree, not the kids fault you can’t possibly expect children to social distance but NPHET will try and not mention that schools are where a large percentage of cases are coming from, this was always going to happen, that along with house parties and food processing factories, etc
@Isabel Oliveira: exactly
@Isabel Oliveira: ‘many young people will die’, what an utterly ridiculous statement, fear mongering in the extreme!
@Isabel Oliveira: I think the question you posed, is the question they will now be asking.
@SB: it is the kids fault if they are spreading it, unintentionally if course. School kids 5yrs up should wear masks.
6 months later … literally I am speechless -_-
Stop! Have they not been asking this all along? It’s almost laughable!
Why are they only asking this now. A hello of alot of the “pubs” aren’t even open yet. It seems to me that there trying to pin this all on socialising. When the home looks to b the place doing the vast vast majority of the damage.
@Peter O’Malley: Because, it was brought into the home from somewhere else. Likely a pub / cafe / restaurant or other indoor setting.
Sweet thundering Jaysus. In Ireland where the pub is the centre of social life……. They are only starting to ask this now??? What a shambles…..
NPHET want a full lockdown for months on end, they are on a crusade to eliminate the virus when the harsh reality is without a proper vaccine which could take years there’s no hope of the virus going anywhere , so what to do keep with a lock down for weeks on end, sometimes months, cases drop, open up again, another spike in cases, lock down yet again, repeat and repeat over and over until unemployment reaches a stage where the country simply can’t sustain it any longer, society as we know it will eventually crumble and we’ll be like a third world country, might sound a bit over the top but this is what could happen if they keep with lock downs over a long period of time..
But why have they been asking pubs/restaurants to take contact details of customers since they reopened if they weren’t going to act on it?
Pubs have only been open since Monday
@seamus toomey: A little slow there buddy. Pubs serving food have been open for quite a while now
I would have presumed they ask you every where you have been for the last few weeks, otherwise it’s kinda of a pointless exercise, why are they only asking these questions now?
@Daniel Curtin: the primary aim is to catch up with who you may have passed it to, going back further is needed to see where you may have caught it
About time – this should have been happening all along. And it’s crazy that it wasn’t.
This is a total joke. Pure incompetence.
It just gets better, pariahs running things!!
It’s like this. It’s everywhere. Self preservation is the way to go. Look after yourself and deal with people like you’re the carrier. Do your best and wash your hands. It’s an awful thing to get and twice as bad to pass on.
It is obvious that infected people should be asked where they have been and where they suspect they may have contracted the virus. It beggars belief that they weren’t asked until now. The one thing we all need to know is where are we most likely to get infected. ‘The East of the Country ‘ ..remember that? ..is not much help.
I’ve just gone into Google Maps on my phone and I can tell every place I’ve been every day for the last few years because its recorded. Most people have this turned on on their phones so a detailed map of where most people have been in the last two weeks is readily available if you wish to share it with the tracker team
but not about schools
‘Certain elements of our social lives are less important than others’ who decides that? And are the rest of us just expected to accept this decision?. That sentence encapsulates why this covid strategy will never work. Encroching on individual freedom is never the answer.
Why not just have qr codes on shop doors, tag your location. The data should overwrite from your phone over a 14 day period, not stored on some servers, that would be bad.
Like a p2p for contract tracing.
There’s always rats nidge….
How about the meat factories
This should be welcomed, as late as it is coming. This will show in a week or two, what settings are the most dangerous. I can’t understand how people think it’s ok to sit in a cafe or restaurant with no mask on, yet they will be smart enough to wear a mask in a shop. Restaurant & cafe dining should only occur outdoors or by takeaway.
A whole lot of you seem to be missing the point. They’re not going to ask purely whether people have been in pubs or restaurants, they are going to ask where people have been in general e.g. pub, cafe, shop, friend’s house. Up to now they had been asking for contacts, not locations.
If anything, not asking that question up to now has probably spared many restaurants, pubs, etc from being logged as bases from which infections occurred and so they haven’t had to deal with deep-cleans or perhaps temporary closures.
This is why the app should really show where you’ve been, much more helpful that way
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