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TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said that ”at this moment people should wait” before booking flights home to Ireland for Christmas, but added that clarity on that issue and other arrangements for Christmas would be given before Level 5 ends.
Speaking on the News at One with Bryan Dobson, Martin said that the government will give people notice “before the end of November” of what the plans for the Christmas period will be “so that people can make preparations”.
But he added that it would not be like Christmas last year: “I get the sense from public they know it’ll be different, that not everybody – if I use the phrase – ‘will be on the lash’ for Christmas, and we won’t have office parties that people might have had in previous years.”
He said that he did believe churches would be open for Christmas week, saying that the weeks leading up to Christmas were also important and that it was important for people’s mental health.
When asked whether Gardaí would be knocking on people’s doors on Christmas Eve to enforce Level 3 restrictions, Martin said “that’s not going to happen”.
The Fianna Fáil leader said that the “exit plan” from Level 5 is still being worked on, but that there could be a staged approach to move out of Level 5.
Martin said the preference was to come out of Level 5 nationally, but said that areas such as Donegal were a “concern”. He said that more effort was needed, “from a communications point of view”, to reduce the cases in that county down further.
Donegal’s 14-day incidence rate is currently 281.4 cases per 100,000 – a slight decrease from 286.4 cases per 100,000 last week, and far above the national rate of 145.
There has been confusion about what preparations should be made about the Christmas period, after Tánaiste Leo Varadkar told the Dáil that people should wait before booking flights home to Ireland, while the Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan went a step further last night, saying that flying home for Christmas was not essential.
“We think people should avoid non-essential travel and continue to do so for the foreseeable future,” Dr Holohan said, adding that inter-county travel would be decided on at the end of the month.
“That includes the Christmas period, and we would feel that the kind of travel that would normally happen at Christmas time, people coming back to spend time with their loved ones, [...] we have to regard as non-essential for this Christmas.”
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I think from now on the comments should be closed on these stories.
@David Clarke: agree, nothing of value to be added here by anyone.
@David Clarke: why ?
@David Clarke: what comments? I can’t see any.
@David Clarke: what comments? I can’t see any.
@David Clarke: why ya commenting on it so?
@David Clarke: you got in with the very first comment to say “no comments!”
I would hope we are big enough and mature enough to be respectful in the comments section when commenting on people’s tragic deaths no matter the cause.
@David Clarke: Totally agree.
@Rochey77: Actually, I have read several articles and watched some videos, so I have plenty to add on the subject of epidemiology thanks very much.
@David Clarke:
You have the right to remain silent.
@Terry Walks: brilliant point made! Good man Terry
@David Clarke: Agreed. Absolutely no value whatsoever.
@Kev Kev:
She didn’t make a comment, she made a statement
@Terry Walks: Where’s that? I’m here for the stories.
@Sylvia O’Regan:
@David Clarke: I would agree with that too.
@David Clarke: Totally agree. I said it here the other day. That have no effective purpose and allow people to publish garbage anonymously.
@David Clarke: the comment sections invariably dissolves into fairly imature fare, very quickly. Not sure why people get so abusive all the time, really.
@David Clarke: They can’t do that David. If they did, Simon would have to sack half of his spin unit and there are enough on the dole already.
@David Clarke: you don’t need to comment .. you don’t get to chose that others shouldn’t be able to.. it’s a slippery slope calling for censorship
@523StarBar: It’s a relatively small restriction in fairness. It’s been proven categorically that bad information causes deaths and there is plenty of it on here.
@David Clarke: I agree , the worst part of the journal is the inevitable slanging matches that evolve on nearly every article.
@David Clarke: if you think there doing a good job them yes dont comment…
@Denis White: same thing… dah
@David Clarke: what a typical idiot “journal” comment. No justification, no rationale or explanation to justify suppressing the individual’s rights to express their opinion (facism btw) on something that’s in the national interest. So sick of reading moronic comments on here like yours and seeing the thumbs up from other idiots that are incapable of thinking through anything.
@Denis White: made a statement by writing a comment, in the comment section of all places….. keep up
@David Clarke:
“I think from now on the comments should be closed on these stories.”
Quick step from denying reality to running away from it!
Are you afraid the truth might hurt….FFG?
@David Clarke: david clarke bot.
Thanks Cheltenham
@Peter Leonard: assumptions …do you think it was only Cheltenham people were away to
@Peter Leonard: Have we seen that impact yet, or will we ever know how many brought back the virus ?
Most who contracted Covid19 at Chelts, unless HSE workers or critically ill have not/will never be tested.
The shortage in reagents has stymied the test test test strategy. Not just here, it seems all countries have shortages of reagents so prioritising the testing currently.
@Peter Leonard: This has been done to death. There is zero evidence of any infections directly related to people returning from Cheltenham. Likewise, their is zero evidence of any infections related to Italian rugby fans who came to Ireland the weekend of the cancelled game. What their is evidence of is our own citizens bringing the virus back from their holliers in Italy, Spain and the Canaries. And they are completely blameless.
@Tommy Roche: their/there. Yea.
@Peter Leonard: Thanks no border control strategy, thanks inadequate testing. A lot of reasons I’d imagine..
@Peter Leonard: stupid statement.
@Tommy Roche: if you studied the graph released a few days ago the majority of cases are in nursing homes and health care workers. There was also another chart the cases from traveling to different countries. It included Italy and Uk and the figures were low
@Belter: it was certainly a contributory factor
@Peter Leonard:
Says the man who’s making things up
@Belter: probably the plane full of Italians allowed in too when we were well aware of Coronavirus
@Peter Leonard: Its comments like this that some others on here have asked for the comments section to be disabled
@Tommy Roche: there was a large article in the times uk that pointed the finger at Cheltenham for the widespread cases in the uk. So the eve ide ve is starting to come out.
@Tommy Roche: it’s not about evidence. Community transmission = untraceable. People have a problem behaving in the right way when there is no direct, visible and traceable link between cause and effect. It’s about behaving in the right way in the knowledge that it will make things better (or less bad) without being able to prove it. I’m not defending or criticising Cheltenham racegoers, but you are wrong to say it’s ok because of lack of evidence
@Tommy Roche: maybe not. https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/concerns-raised-that-cheltenham-festival-helped-spread-coronavirus-across-the-country/03/04/
@Peter Leonard:
So all the elderly people, got out of their homes, and went to Cheltenham
Rethink that headline. Very misleading.
@Sam McCormack: agreed
@Sam McCormack: how
@Madra: they’ve just changed it now.
@Sam McCormack: in what way? The deaths have reached 100 and there’s 424 new cases
@Sam McCormack: yep I had to look over it a couple of times
@Sam McCormack: it previously stated, and notified me on my phone as “Deaths pass 100 as 424 new cases confirmed”
@Sam McCormack: Yeah, though it was 120 deaths today, heart sank. Still tragic that 22 have passed away.
@Bain triail aisti: Absolutely. May they all rest in peace – can’t imagine what pain their families are going through.
Huge respect and gratitude to all frontline & health care staff. #ThankYou
RIP to those and prayers with their families. We are doing better than initially expected. These numbers are depressing but could be so much worse. Keep doing what we are doing. We can beat this
@peter crew:
It was very clever of Leo to tell us how many he expected would be diagnosed. Everyone is comparing the actual numbers to those inflated predictions and thinking we are doing great. We are not. And we are lagging a few weeks behind the rest of Europe. It’ll be the lax border control that’ll sink us. We’ve done everything we have been asked. But our neighbouring countries are going to have continuous problems for the rest of the year at least. And will freely move to and from Ireland.
@peter crew: we are not doing better or worse than whats predicted, as no one knows how to predict the outcome.
The only thing we do know is that the figures being released are still 10 to 14 days behind the true numbers, they are testing on average 5000 people per day and can only process 1400 tests per day, so on a 7 day week they are testing 35000 people but only processing 9400 tests.
When they catch up with it all we will know the true figures, plus there’s people still waiting on results and passing away before they receive them and it’s not included in the figures.
@Sylvia O’Regan: I wouldn’t necessarily agree with all that.
Although some truth in what you say
@Sylvia O’Regan: I agree with Peter not because of Varadkars comments on the basis of Tony Holohans. At the very beginning he gave his predictions for what the figures could or would be at a given time and we are below that thank God. Unfortunately I’m more worried people might get complacent and ease up just hope it doesnt happen
@Frances Casey:
We were always going to be below the predictions. That baseline was predicated on conditions at the time remaining the same. As soon as we began to take actions both at a national and individual level, we changed the variables.
It’s like the old saying “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”. Same with predictions in situations of extreme complexity and rapid change.
@Sylvia O’Regan:
You really don’t know what you’re talking about but still try to discredit the experts.
@Aviationdub: I don’t think they are testing 5000 per day. 2 days ago it was 1500 per day with a total of 30000 since the beginning.
@Aviationdub: Going by how many are currently in ICU and those that have so far Died when compared to other nations in Europe with comparable sized populations we are doing quite well. We brought in restrictions fairly early in the European stage of this Pandemic while others (Not looking across the sea) chose for political and economic reasons to delay for nearly 2 weeks before realising that it was a serious mistake. And now are reaping what the sowed.
@Doug: I guessing if you don’t close the loop more carrier’s arrive and we start again! Simple solution to quarantine/isolation for all returnees under enforcement for two weeks whilst tested. We could get on top of this eventually only for a tourist/business person to arrive from the UK/elsewhere and keep the virus going. The quarantine/isolation option was also the most cost effective option from the start of the outbreak but was ignored.
May all the people who need not have died from better management of this virus by Government/HSE managenent rest in peace!
@Sylvia O’Regan:
Why do you think he is clever?
He is just a figurehead.
The clever people are the Civil Servants that write all the utterances for the figureheads.
@Doug: countries that are successfully fighting this have effective border control
Our expert is the same expert that said 3/4 weeks ago it’s safe to visit nursing homes
Thank you China
@Roibeard Ó Riain: What is China’s policy on Western Billionaires investing into China? Is CCP rule restrictive?
@Roibeard Ó Riain: Anyway, the disease appears to have taken even the USA by surprise.
@John Hazelnut: No surprise. They just have a thundering gobshlte in charge.
@Tommy Roche: He’s not the only person in Government, over there, they have a Congress.
In a way I’m relieved I read the headline wrong (thought it was 100 deaths today!).. and in another it’s really upsetting that so many people have passed away because of this. RIP
@Dalya Al-Tulaihi: Agree, the headline is very misleading.
@Mick Rooney (TIPM): agreed very misleading and frightening the elderly people.
I’ve been in work most days since the measures were brought in. Driving from north county Dublin to south county Dublin. Today was the busiest I’ve seen the roads and people out and about on foot. Like a ghost town early this week. Not so much today.
@Brian: I’ve heard the number of train passengers are increasing too
@Rebekah Corbett: doesn’t surprise me if true. Groups of teens still hanging around together too. Sad that they and their parents don’t give a f.. .
@Brian: it was really noisy on my road today, but I didn’t bother looking out so not sure what they were up to.
@Rebekah Corbett: nobody on them empty all over greater Dublin area and mainline sligo and Wexford
I’d like to see more detail on them
Age band, gender, other health issues or not
@Sequoia: Other than health info, all that information is freely available
@Sequoia: why
@Clive Sutton: age isn’t available. They give median which is a useless metric in this circumstance
If 20 people die.
11 are 85 years old
9 are 15 years old
The median is 85. Average is more appropriate
@Vin: The information is available in age bands, you just have to look for it, you cant expect to be spoonfed everything
@Clive Sutton: the context of the comment you replied to, was that he would like to see more information in these Journal posts.
The entire point of “news” since it’s inception is being spoonfed things in a convenient way. Why are you here?
Dope
Shocking. Stay positive people. Help each other.
Rip xxx
Every day, the surge is always ’2 weeks away’…surely this is the beginning of the surge now?
@Ricky: Not sure if its been updated but last I read the peak is expected between 10th-14th of April
@Ricky: what do you base that on
@Clive Sutton: yes that is what they were expecting. I’ve heard in some of the hospitals that they are expecting the peak in the 3rd week of April now. What we are doing (social distancing, staying in etc) seems to be working. Fingers crossed!!
@Mark Fitzmaurice: peak cases or peak deaths?
@Mark Fitzmaurice: as with everything based on models and the probabilities they throw up…they are only educated guesses. But we do seem to be flattening the curve somewhat. We started witb a doubling of cases every 3 days or so…and we are out to 7 to 8 days now do the rate of growth has slowed down, even though the numbers are high. Its the doubling rate that is the important number, not the actual amount each day. So hopefully we do see the spike shortly and then the gradual decline. In everything these are just models but they seem to be tracking in a positive way at least…even though it looks ever more dire each day, the data on an overall level shows the curve being flattened which is the important point.
@Ronan McCabe: in theory one translates into the other, the more the cases the more deaths.
@Mike Kelly: I don’t know Mike, with all the graphs and statistics I offered up, it’s probably the deaths and cases going up since Tuesday..and that I asked the question.
@Ricky: hopefully the effects of the full lockdown will come in 7-10 days times ..it seems from the data in the mainland that the rate of increase drops to about 5-6%, Italy is now 3.9% increase. That’s would flatten the curve and save so many precious lives here
@Ricky: Spor on Ricky. It’s nothing more than a buying time exercise. Looking at figures from other countries doesn’t inspire me either. I’m beginning to think we’ll be living like this until the virus mutates and makes itself far less dangerous or a vaccine is fast tracked. Can’t see how life can get back to any sense of normality anytime soon. A horrible thought, but we’re stuck with it.
RIP to all who have passed
Why are they not updating the recovery number?
They are only giving us the negative side of things.
They need to give a positive spin to people too!
@Pád: 5. According to worldometers.info . It’s not very positive so I guess that’s why it’s not being published
@Pád: 5 According to worldometers.info . It’s not very positive so I guess that’s why it’s not being published
@Pád:
I would say they are not tracking the recovery numbers outside of hospital cases..The official number of 5 are probably those who were hospitalised and have recovered.
Bottom line is those who don’t die recover.
Leo has I blood on his hands, had the chance to go into Lockdown on Paddy’s day instead practiced some speech about ‘ a better Ireland ‘ this wasn’t about same sex marriage we needed leadership not a meaningful less speech, to late now
@Pat Kelly: what a joke of a comment.
@Pat Kelly: Don’t you listen to the news the majority of cases are in nursing homes and health care workers. Also according to a chart a few days ago there was only one cluster in a pub. Given the fact the pubs have been closed for a number of weeks those figures are not going to change
@Pat Kelly: you should be in his place then. Why take it on Leo when he’s taking the advise from the health executive. Or should he be taking the advise from you. F Moron. Stop making stupid comments.
@Anne Doddy: so why did we bother with a Lockdown at all then.. if it’s all going so well
@james foley: I dont think people dying is a joke do you..
@Laro Alba: yea cuz that’s how it works thanks for not contributing
@Pat Kelly: We also need to close the loop of new carrier’s entering the country or this will continue on…..
@Anne Doddy: and who said 3/4 weeks ago it’s safe to go to nursing homes ? And that’s the expert we rely on
@Anne Doddy: what’s your point and yes fake news is great to listen to if your in to that kind of thing
@Anne Doddy: No they’re not. We aren’t testing nearly enough people to find out where the “majority” are infected, healthcare workers and obviously nursing home patients are tested because of contact and exposure. We have narrowed our criteria significantly so we’re not getting close to the big picture here.
I was tested 9 days ago, had to wait 8 days for the test so that 17 days total and still no results. How can these numbers be truly reflective of what going on in this country.
@Fiona Mallin: They’re not – what people seem to not get on here is that A) the testing criteria we have are so specific that even if we had a decent turnover rate of tests we would not get close to the full picture b) we don’t have even close to a decent turnover rate for testing. Best case scenario we’re looking into a snapshot of about 2 weeks ago
It would be helpful to know how many test results are coming in each day so the number if new cases being reported can be understood in the light of how many results there are. Obviously if the number of results is going up the number of positives may go up while the percentage of positive results might indicate a fall in the rate of transmission.
Rip
Are there’s deaths nursing home deaths ?
@James Quinn: They’re mostly nursing homes. Our Ladies Hospice has a Facebook post begging people for any long sleeve fluid-repellent gowns they might have. The government are doing nothing to help the ones who need our protection the most.
@Caroline Scanlan: “The government are doing nothing” really????
@Justin Gillespie: where’d that come from Justin??
@James Quinn:
We privatised the looking after our elderly,
We should be ashamed of ourselves
We let them down
These numbers, aside from deaths, are pie in the sky BS.
@Graham Manning: how do mean they are pie on the sky
@Jimmy Murray: Without widespread testing and with so many people asymptomatic or with very mild symptoms, most countries haven’t a clue how many infections they actually have. Numbers f deaths and admissions to ICU are a more useful comparison.
@Jimmy Murray: pretty much Thomas’ answer. results of tests are weeks behind (into my third week of waiting), those asymptomatic or with mild symptoms not being tested though still infectious, change in criteria means host of those with even obvious/serious symptoms not being tested. All means only death numbers admissions to ICU mean anything. Daily number of cases are meaningless FG spin
@Graham Manning: more reason to stay at F#%king home then. Everyone won’t be tested. If you think you could have it take it you have it and STAY AT HOME
If 51% are female and 48% are Male, what is the other 1% ?
@Steven Boyd: Chinese
@Steven Boyd: other
@Steven Boyd: 22 people dead since yesterday, 120 overall, and that’s what you choose to focus on?
@Brian Ó Dálaigh:
And you think he should focus on….what?
Every time I go on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries Ireland’s gone up couple places, overtaken Denmark Poland Chechnya now when they were way ahead at one stage?
@Dougal67: Czechia, not Chechnya. Chechnya is part of Russia.
@Dougal67: I don’t get your point but that’s expected. We travel and have much more tourists then all those countries you listed.
@Laro Alba: What? You’ve surveyed this???
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: yes I know I typed that stupid phone changed it to Chechnya?? Lol
@Dougal67: The rankings mean nothing. They reflect the number of cases identified which is dependant on the number of tests done.
Since this is all over the place I wouldn’t pay too much attention to it.
A better metric is the number of people dead per head of population, you will find this to the right of the table but there is no way of sorting it into order
@Justin Gillespie: Yes there is. You can sort it high to low. We are 16th.
@Justin Gillespie: just alarming we r overtaking nations daily, most in fact all with populations way higher than us 2,3 4 times higher than us!! Denmark 6m, Czechia 11m, Russia 145m chile 15m, don’t think there’s any country above us or around us with our population? Worrying….
@Dougal67: we might be doing more tests than them. Some countries are barely testing at all.
@Rei: 30k since end of feb r u sure?
RIP
It would be helpful to know how many test results are coming in each day so the number of new cases being reported can be understood in the light of how many new results there are. Obviously if the number of results is going up the number of positives may go up while the percentage of positive results might indicate a fall in the rate of transmission.
Can we please go on full shut down by closing take away chippers, pizza parlours and the likes. Drove through Rathmines to get some food yesterday and to my horror there were about 8 take aways and pizza parlours flying away on the main street. The entire town looked open and the streets were busy with people visiting pizza places and so on. Passed a chinese that was fully open and a chipper fully open. We are only half doing this shut down. If this continues it will ensure we will not get back to normal any time soon.
@Imagine !: eh no!
@Imagine !: no, and they can stay open for delivery’s only. restaurants were all closed for eat in last week. Providing food is essential. Baring in mind Italy only closed all their factories last Monday.
It’s really frightening a lot of people both old and young. Maby relax on the information for a while.
So the experts say it should peak in Ireland over the Easter weekend. No matter what i would feel safer with at least another week before lifting the restrictions. I am not a fan of Leo but i must say he has not let the people down & kudo’s to the people of Ireland who [in the majority of ppl] are doing what ought to be done without complaining. This will show to be highly effective when we look back on this. FYI, i’m a Doctor….ish [watched every episode of 'House', twice] Stay safe ppl
RIP to those we’ve lost and sincere condolences to the families.
All that being said I fell the areas where the infected and the deaths could be better announced in so far as the South, West ie is rather vague while for example as small and area as North County A, South County G or East M would ease the worry of people in other parts of that particular country or other Countries not mentioned ?
@Patrick Foley: everyone should be worried! If people thought it’s not near them do you think they would take the hse advice?
@Patrick Foley: everyone should be worried! If people think that it is not near them do you think they would take the hse advice?
Why is it not reported anywhere on any site or media the number of recoveries. At present the only number of recoveries for Ireland which surely cannot be correct if we were the average we should have about 600 hundred recovered
@James Murphy: in order to be officially recovered, you need a second test.
I imagine the testing is being prioritised for new cases
We seem to be stuck on 10% daily increases for a week now…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland
This is frustrating.
We have been kind of placing ourselves in the same lane as Denmark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Denmark
They look at about 8.5% daily increase.
Denmark seem slightly more relaxed than us, so this frustrating…
RIP
I’d like the journal.ie to do an explainer on statistics and why reporting the median age for deaths and such is a much better average of what’s happening instead of reporting the mean.
@David McGuigan: The median is a better indicator because it is the age at which there are an equal number of people either side. It doesn’t get distorted by a very young or very old person dying. In this case it shows that a lot of people who are dying are relatively old as the median is in the 80s meaning as many people above the median age have died from CV-19 as have died and are below this age. So based on today’s stats 61 people who have died were younger than the median and 61 people were older.
@Joe: nonsense. You cant have extreme outliers in a metric like age. People only live so long.
Median is a ridiculous metric to use. You could have 5-10 twenty year olds dead and the median would be 80+
Can we please go on full shut down by closing take away chippers, pizza parlours and the likes. Drove through Rathmines to get some food yesterday and to my horror there were about 8 take always and pizza parlours flying away on the main street. The entire town looked open and the streets were busy with people visiting pizza places and so on. Passed a chinese that was fully open and a chipper fully open. We are only half doing this shut down. If this continues it will ensure we will not get back to normal any time soon.
@Imagine !: very contradictory there
So you drove through looking for food and all these food places were open ?
Do you not see the stupidity right there…you are the reason these food places are open you clueless dick
What about number of recoveries ?
Close comments
Looking at the world news on personal stories, it is not just the old that are dying but anybody suffering from obesity! Think we all need to think about our loved ones who are very overweight and see them as high risk!!!
RIP to all who have died on the island of Ireland. 12 dead in the 6 counties….. as in 2 per county. 22 dead in the 26 counties =0.850 per county. Glad to be living on this side of the Border. Arlene Foster needs to take note.
@Sally Kavourmas: Counties aren’t all the same size you know?
@Thomas O’ Donnell: I appreciate that….and also acknowledge the fact that the 6 Counties has a large population. But the maths don’t lie. The death rate is twice as high in the 6 counties, than it is in Ireland.
This is what happens when you
@Pat Kelly: ….. it sure is …..
@Pat Kelly: …hit ‘post’ too early?
Forgot to say R.I.P to all you have died.
R.I.P to the poor people who have succumbed to this man made virus and god bless their families in this awful time. Just wait now for about a week when the awful reality hits everyone when their are no more icu beds available because of the shambles of the HSE, then the shit will really hit the fan. Everyone praising the way the Government is handling the situation, you won’t be in a week. Stay safe everyone.
The most worrying/confusing part for me is there are still only 5 recoved on the worldometers.info and it’s going on awhile in Ireland now.
@Susanne Quinn: The Google homepage has a link to a coronavirus map. According to this map 25 have recovered. https://google.com/covid19-map/?hl=en
Forgot to say RIP to all you have died.
Only 24 deaths in Australia. Why?
Any update on numbers recovered from the virus
The poignant statistic is:
“The median age of the deaths reported today was 80 and the overall median age of the deaths in Ireland is 82.” (Source : article above)
Is the Coronaviuus and Civic 19 the same,.
I don’t think so.. One is the flu. Ànd one is a Lie
We washed our hands at looking after the elderly, and privatised it
The two parties who were the main instigators of this are hoping to put a government together, and of course the PDs
Let the market dictate. We let the elderly down badly
Numbers still very low don’t panic
have your say