Too early for travel decisions
The prospect of seeing our loved ones come through the arrival gates of Cork Airport for Christmas is still up in the air.
Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health, was questioned this week on whether the tradition of people coming home to Ireland for Christmas would be possible during this Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions.
He told an Oireachtas Transport Committee that NPHET’s advice to Government will depend on a variety of issues, including how safe or unsafe travelling from another country into Ireland is.
He said the question of whether people can come home for Christmas was “still hypothetical”.
“The advice that has to pertain to the second half of December in relation to travel relates to a whole lot of factors that we don’t know about at this point in time.” He said it “simply was not possible” to make a decision now about it.
“We can only make that decision at that point in time. I understand the sensitivity that this has for families and for people that are thinking about this.
“There are probably families who have not seen each other for many, many months and I understand all the implications of that for the airline industry too.
“If we make the progress that we think we will over the next few weeks, we don’t want to put that at risk inadvertently by the arrangements we put in during the month of December that leads to importation of the disease.”
When asked if Christmas would be normal, Dr Holohan said: “I’m not just reflecting on Christmas but life isn’t going to be normal when we have extensive transmission of this disease in this country.”
Even if we move past 1 December and get to a level where we hope to get to, we will still be dealing with restrictions in this country in the same way as every other country. So in that sense, it won't be normal.”
Restrictions
“It will depend on where the disease is and we will make that decision then,” he added.
When it was put to him that the cases were coming down while the country was in Level 3, he said he didn’t agree with that opinion.
He explained: “The population has been more concerned. People have taken decisions themselves to avoid risks and cut down their contacts. That’s been going on for some time. Secondly, we have evidence that there hasn’t been a suppressing effect in places like Dublin that had been in Level 3 for longer.
“We think Level 3 type restrictions seem to be hold the virus rather than reducing it. We have to drive down the level of transmission and that’s why Level 5 measures were recommended.”
Dr Holohan added: “We’ve been focusing on getting the message out to the age group that gave us greater transmission concern over the past number of weeks which has been 19-24 year olds. We’ve good reason to believe that they are changing their behaviour and are listening to the message. They are taking responsibility and avoiding circumstances that lead to the transmission of the virus.”