Who is popular today?

The Government wants to avoid a “long-scale shutdown” of schools and childcare facilities because it would not be beneficial for children, especially for those with special needs or in disadvantaged areas, the Minister for Children has said.
Roderic O’Gorman said the situation was under constant review and the Minister for Education, Norma Foley, would be engaging with Opposition education spokespeople today, while he would be engaging with the childcare sector.
The advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) had always been that schools were safe places, and the decision to delay their reopening until January 11th was part of a sustained effort to reduce movements in the community and to halt transmission of the virus, he said.
“We do want to avoid a long-scale shutdown, but we are keeping the situation under review. If the public health guidance from Nphet changed at any stage, obviously Government policy would change.”
As for the position of the educational sector on the vaccination priority list, the Minister said that if there were changes in the sector then that position would be reviewed.
Level 5 restrictions had been introduced on December 24th and December 30th and it would take 10 to 14 days for their impact to be seen.
Mr O’Gorman told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that the Government would do more if necessary but “we need to give the restrictions time to work”.
A daily record of 4,962 Covid-19 cases was confirmed on Sunday, pushing overall infection numbers beyond the 100,000-mark.
Mr O’Gorman defended the Government’s plan for crèches to remain open to care for the children of essential workers. When asked if there should be a second list to prioritise health care workers, Mr O’Gorman said that a second list would confuse the situation.
However, he did agree that crèches should prioritise cases where the parents could not work from home.
Level 5 restrictions had been introduced on December 24th and December 30th and it would take 10 to 14 days for their impact to be seen, Mr O’Gorman said. A long shut down of schools would not be good for children, he said, but the Government would keep the situation under review.
Meanwhile, public health expert Professor Anthony Staines has warned that reported plans not to alert all close contacts of positive cases would be counterproductive.
“One of the basics of public health is the more you know about the cases you’re dealing with the better,” he told Newstalk’s Breakfast Briefing.
There was also the real concern that if people were not tested, they would not be “in the system” and would not be contact traced which was really important for breaking down transmission of the disease, he said.