A CABINET MEETING is expected to take place tomorrow in the wake of new recommendations from NPHET aimed at stemming the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.
The recommendations, included in a letter from Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, include a 5pm closing time for pubs and restaurants.
Additional restrictions around numbers at sporting and live events are also expected.
It comes amid stark warnings from the HSE that the health service is at “extremely high risk levels” amid the thread from Omicron.
Cabinet is set to meet in the morning to discuss the measures with an announcement from the Taoiseach expected tomorrow evening.
Government sources said the 5pm closing time was by no means decided upon as yet and would be discussed by ministers tomorrow.
Responding to news of the expected early evening closing time for pubs and restaurants the CEO of the Restaurants Association of Ireland Adrian Cummins said any such measures would amount to a “lockdown of the sector”.
The Vintners’ Federation of Ireland said on Twitter that the measure would be “devastating”.
Speaking earlier today Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said that changes to current guidelines were likely.
“I again understand the anxiety and the deepening fatigue that so many face at the moment but our booster vaccination campaign is picking up speed by the hour and we do have the measure of this pandemic,” Donohoe told RTÉ’s News at One.
We’ll get to a better place in 2022 on it but it may indeed be the case that we need to do more across Christmas than we would have anticipated so what the Government will do is as soon as we receive the formal communication from NPHET, the Government will meet and we will aim to reduce any uncertainty or indeed anxiety in so far as we can by quickly making and communicating a decision.
Immediately ahead of the NPHET meeting, no particularly significant ramping up of restrictions had been expected, with Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien telling this website yesterday that he imagined it would be a “tailoring of what we have in place already”.
However earlier in the week another senior source said “nothing would surprise me in terms of recommendations”.
Speculation had been rife in political circles earlier this week that the measures could include opening hour curtailments for the hospitality sector.
Omicron cases
Donnelly said earlier it was estimated that the Omicron variant represents 27% of all new Covid-19 cases in Ireland.
It means the number of cases linked to the new variant has doubled in the last few days.
Donnelly also said that boosters provide a “dramatic and essential additional protection” and that people in their 40s would be able to get appointments for their booster jabs at mass vaccination centres next week.
“Last week the Omicron variant made up about 1% of all new cases in Ireland. By the weekend it was up to 5%,” Donnelly told the Dail.
“On Tuesday, the rate that was reported was 14%. Today, just two days later, I can confirm that the Omicron variant now comprises over 27% of all new cases.”
There were 4,141 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland announced today. As of this morning there were 443 Covid patients in hospital, representing an 18% reduction on last week, with 105 in ICU.
HSE boss Paul Reid said earlier today that the country needs to see a continued downward trend of cases “because the base level that we’re at puts us at extremely high risk levels, if any levels of predictions related to Omicron emerge as true.
“So it would be an extremely high level to go into a wave of Omicron.”
HSE chief clinical officer Colm Henry said: “There’s much talk about a weakened link between harm and cases, but we know from the Delta variant, if you have enough cases ultimately some of them will always translate into harm, whether it’s hospitalisation, or ICU.”
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