The Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly was speaking to the This Week show on RTÉ Radio1.
He told Justin McCarthy that the current R number for Dublin was as low now as 1.0, but the R number for the rest of Ireland now stood at 1.6. The overall number for the whole country was 1.2.
The R number or reproduction numbers is the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to, on average.
Dublin has been at Level 3 restrictions since 18 September, the rest of the country entered into the same level of restrictions last Tuesday.
Schools
In the same interview, the Minister said that there “there isn’t going to be a longer mid-term break for schoolchildren” and that “principals, teachers, and students have done an incredible job”.
He said that information he received suggested that, “schools are not contributing to a rise in numbers” because epidemiological research shows that there is a very low level of transmission in schools.
The minister also said that he had been warned by teachers that, “for some students, the educational cost [of lockdown and no school] has been very profound”.
ICU capacity
He also spoke about the government’s plans to permanently double ICU capacity in Irish hospitals.
There are currently 285 ICU beds in Ireland, with a surge capacity of 360.
On the prospect of COVID patients filling up ICUs in the weeks ahead, the minister said, “It’s unlikely that ICUs will be overwhelmed by COVID cases. The real concern is the non-COVID cases who need ICU care.”
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