A report from the Department of Public Health in the Mid-West has produced the shocking finding that one man, a Covid-19 super-spreader, went on to infect a further 56 people with the potentially deadly virus.
The man went on holidays outside the country but did not comply with HSE guidelines to quarantine for 14 days upon his return, despite the fact that he had some known Covid-19 symptoms.
The Public Health Department’s report states that “He had mild symptoms including a runny nose and a mild sore throat. He checked his temperature and it was normal. He felt reassured by this and socialised with a group of friends.”
The man had already spread the virus to a large number of friends by the time he tested postive himself. Some of those friends infected their own families. One of the man’s friends who had some symptoms arranged a Covid-19 test with her GP. However, while awaiting results of the test, instead of following the HSE guidelines to self-isolate, the woman decided to attend a party as “she felt a bit better”. After the party, she received a positive result. By that stage, however, she had infected a number of the party’s attendees.
“By attending the party while waiting for her test result, she ended up infecting a number of other people. The index case has a close extended family who visit each other’s houses regularly. This led to some extended family members also getting infected with COVID-19. One of his extended family members who had no symptoms played a match with his local team and a number of his teammates were infected as a result. The team members then went on to infect a number of people,” the report said.
The total number of people infected, including family, friends and members of a sports team, was 56.
The case shows that non-compliance with public health advice and regulations can cause uncontrolled virus spread.
For regular updates on official Covid-19 regulations and advice please see: https://www.gov.ie/en/news/7e0924-latest-updates-on-covid-19-coronavirus/#
