ACTING CHIEF MEDICAL Officer Dr Ronan Glynn has said that Ireland is “still in control” of the spread of Covid-19. 

Glynn, who appeared on RTÉ One’s Late Late Show last night, called on people to remain committed to the fight against the virus. 

He said that the main challenge now is to keep Covid-19 under control as the country opens up. 

“It’s no surprise that since we’ve opened up and relaxed measures over the past three months that we’ve seen an increase in cases. But we’ve seen a very slow increase in cases, a completely different trajectory and picture than we would have seen back in March, thankfully,” Glynn said last night. 

He was appearing on the first episode of the Late Late Show since its summer break. 

“We’re not where we’d like to be. We’d prefer to have much lower numbers of cases every day, but that said, particularly with the measures we brought in a couple of weeks ago, we are seeing a stabilisation.”

Two weeks ago, the government introduced new measures designed to suppress a spike in cases – ordering all sport to be played behind closed doors and asking people to avoid public transport where possible. 

People were also encouraged to limit their interactions with other households. 

On the same programme, Glynn also said that the government and the National Pubic Health Emergency team were close to finishing work on a plan that would take the country through the next nine months. 

“We are closing the chapter of Covid-9 and are now moving into chapter two,” he said. 

The Acting Chief Medical Officer says Covid-19 is still "under control" in Ireland. However, he says there is no certainty around what is going to happen in the pandemic | https://t.co/Uwo0ul4LZF pic.twitter.com/jPZPKeKPFJ

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) September 4, 2020

Winter

Looking ahead to the winter, Glynn said that “we don’t want to see people isolated in their homes”.

Experts have expressed concern that a spike in Covid-19 cases, combined with the yearly seasonal pressure on the health service, could pose a major challenge for healthcare staff and hospital capacity. 

“We need people to stay connected,” he said. And while he said he wanted people to play sport and have social lives, “for all of that to happen, we need people to do it in just a slightly different way”. 

“All of the small things together add up to an enormous contribution to the national effort,” Glynn said.

“The job we have to do is see that stabilisation continues and improves.”

Yesterday, the Department of Health confirmed that a further 98 cases of Covid-19 had been confirmed in Ireland. It brings the total number of Covid-19 cases in the Republic of Ireland to 29,303.