Who is popular today?

Local lockdowns may be used if there are spikes of Covid-19 cases or localised concerns around the Indian variant of the disease, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said.
The Fine Gael leader said that while there have been “mixed results” to such lockdowns in the past, the Government is retaining the option to use them should they be needed in the coming months.
“Local lockdowns to local restrictions are a policy option, they’re there in the government’s plan. They are a policy option if we have an outbreak in a particular area. But we’ve had mixed results with them in the past unfortunately, the one in Kildare and the Midlands worked, others didn’t really. The country is so small and people travel so much within Ireland, local lockdowns probably aren’t as effective as they might be in other countries but it is an option should we need to use it but hopefully we won’t have to.”
Mr Varadkar also said he shared the concerns of the chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan about large crowds gathering in Dublin on Saturday afternoon.
He warned that something similar could happen next weekend, which is a bank holiday weekend, if the weather is good.
“It is very disappointing that we witnessed the scenes that we saw in Dublin yesterday. We are encouraging people to get outdoors, and it’s much safer to be outdoors than indoors. But the rules still apply. People shouldn’t be meeting up in groups of more than three households and should try to observe social distancing. We would certainly share the CMO’s concerns in relation to that,” he said,
“But I would say, on the seventh of June, we will see outdoor hospitality reopening. And I think what we’re going to see on our streets is something a bit more organised because of the fact that pubs and bars and restaurants will be able to open their doors so that’s a positive move.”
The Tánaiste, speaking in Dublin on Sunday afternoon, said there was a role for the gardaí to play and also for the city council.
Cases
Earlier a further 374 cases of Covid-19 were reported in the State as Mr Varadkar warned the possibility of a fourth wave of the virus could affect the further re-opening of society and the economy.
Speaking on radio he said “increased socialisation across the summer, and this Indian variant or even the Vietnamese variant which we’re reading about now” could cause a fourth wave.
Vaccination will make the difference between this and the third wave “but the problem is only 20 per cent of our population is fully vaccinated. “So what we’re targeting now is to get over 60 per cent - 2.5 million people fully vaccinated by the end of July, that’s where we need to be.”
The Government will assess the epidemiological situation at the end of June “before giving the final green light”. He said “that’s always been the case that we review the situation before D-day”.
The Tánaiste said on RTÉ’s This Week programme that the decisions on re-opening in June, July and August “were made on foot of public health advice from Nphet and the CMO” on the basis of a “low to moderate risk”.
The review at the end of June will be based on the levels of the virus, the vaccination programme, the impact of the variants and the levels of hospitalisation.
Latest figures show that as of midnight on Saturday there were 99 Covid-19 patients in the country’s hospitals, with 35 of those in ICU.
The Department of Health said the daily case number may change due to future data validation.
The CEO of the HSE Paul Reid said the vaccination programme was making “great headway” with over 1 million people vaccinated in May and a total of 2.7 million vaccines administered.
In a message posted on Twitter he said 50 per cent of the adult population has had one dose and close to 20 per cent of people have had a second dose. “Reduced illness, sickness, mortality and a massive take-up,” he noted.
Digital certificate
Earlier, Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne said the digital green certificate is the best potential way to reduce delays at airports for people travelling within the EU.
Responding to reports that the Cabinet had been warned of delays of up to 10 hours at airports as non-essential air travel prepares to return from July 19th Mr Byrne said “if we didn’t have the digital green certificate I can absolutely see why those delays would happen”.
He said that “currently people are showing a piece of paper or an email and people are looking at it, querying whether this is the correct certificate or result” and there is “massive scope for delay”.
Mr Byrne said he had experience of it travelling to Brussels and MEPs had reported difficulties as they tried to get to the Belgian capital through different routes because of poor connections. It is “chaotic” as people look for “bits of paper”.
But with the digital Covid certificate “there is a standardised way of looking at things - and its’ a very simple extra check, just like a passport, or boarding pass in a standard form”.
“I think that is the best potential to reduce delays,” he said on Newstalk’s On the Record with Gavan Reilly on Sunday.
The digital Covid certificate is aimed to help EU residents demonstrate whether they have been vaccinated when travelling within the bloc. The system has been developed at the insistence of member states that are economically reliant on tourism in the hope it will help to ease travel restrictions.
Traffic lights
Mr Byrne said they are going to try and have as best as possible co-ordination of that and the European Council of Ministers will recommend the re-introduction of the old traffic lights system.
The rules are all different in almost every member state but he hoped over the next month they could get them harmonised as much as possible.
He added that the French government has invited health and European affairs ministers members to a meeting on Tuesday and to look at travel restrictions and travel into EU.
The new system comes into effect in the EU on July 1st and member states have six weeks to have it in place but Ireland will implement it on July 19th.
The green certificate will also come in paper form but he believed most people would use the App which would have three certificates – one for those vaccinated against the virus, one for those who have a negative PCR test, and one for those who have recovered from Covid-19.
He said “the only difficulty with the system is it depends on the rules in your own country and rules in the country you want to visit”.
But he said that “as vaccination progresses and as numbers go down it is likely there will be a common set of standards” while currently there are different rules for all those systems.