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The Cabinet has agreed a new wave of Covid-19 restrictions, which will see the country return to Level 5, with some exceptions.
Visits from two households will be allowed on St Stephen’s Day but that will then be reduced to one household until December 31st and home visits will be banned completely in the new year, it is expected.
Travel between counties will be banned from St Stephen’s Day, but people who have already travelled for Christmas will not be asked to return home. However, once they returm home after their visit, no new inter-county travel can take place.
Bars and restaurants will close at 3pm on Christmas Eve, though gyms and non-essential retail will be permitted to stay open. Hairdressers and personal services will close from Christmas Eve. Shops will be asked not to hold sales.
Hotels will be permitted to open for Christmas, but it has not been decided yet whether they will be able to stay open for guests only after that.
Christmas religious services can take place but services will move online after December 25th. Churches will remain open for private prayer.
Travel restrictions from Britain will remain in place until at least December 31st.
It is understood that the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) warned the Government that case numbers would surge in the coming days, exceeding 900 per day by tomorrow. The growth in infections is now running at 10 per cent a day, which if it continued unchecked would threaten to overwhelm the health service within a few weeks.
The restrictions will be reviewed on January 12th.
The Cabinet has also been told the first vaccinations in the Republic ill take place on either December 30th or 31st. About 10,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are due to be available after Christmas.
The moves follow a dramatic change of mood in Government in recent days and come in response to a surge in infections and warnings from public health experts that case numbers will rise further this week and that we are in the throes of a third wave.
Speaking on his way into the Cabinet meeting, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said that public health doctors and infectious disease doctors were deeply concerned at how quickly the virus had been spreading in recent weeks and about the new variant of the disease identified in the UK.
‘Good news’
The chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan had recommended a return to Level 5 restrictions and “that’s what will be considered” by the Cabinet, he said.
The “job right now” was to keep people alive and safe, he said. The best way to do that was to slow the virus down and get the vaccination programme up and running quickly.
“On Christmas Day, an awful lot of people in every county in this country are going to be sitting down with their families and having a Christmas Day, who otherwise wouldn’t have been if this virus had been let out of control.”
Mr Donnelly said it was good news that the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine had been authorised by the EMA ahead of time. Plans would be in place from today to get the vaccine into the country. “We will begin vaccinating this side of the New Year.”
The Minister added that he was hopeful that the Moderna vaccine would be authorised in the first week of January.
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan said there was real concern that Covid-19 numbers are growing so fast and across all age groups.
They are growing “just as fast in the older cohort as in the younger cohort” which was “slightly different from October when it was mainly young people.”
Mr Ryan said that the Government will be introducing new restrictions, “I think it’s necessary because of what we’ve seen, not just in Ireland, but in other countries too.
“When you lose control, it’s very difficult to get it back. We want to keep control the way we have in this country.”
Mr Ryan said there would be a series of staggered dates regarding change to restrictions, “they won’t be all on the same date over the holiday period.”