The government has chosen to delay making a decision on further COVID restrictions for Dublin.
The National Public Health Emergency Team yesterday recommended a further clamp down on gatherings in people’s homes but a call won’t be made until Tuesday.
After increasing numbers of positive testing in Dublin NPHET recommended that gatherings in people’s homes be limited to six people from two different households in the capital.
It follows a trend of community transmission in peoples homes. It also recommended that pubs that don’t serve food shouldn’t open in Dublin on the 21st of September if cases continue to rise.
The government has chosen not to make a decision on this until next Tuesday, when it will publish a 6-9 month roadmap for living alongside the virus.
That plan will rate every county on a scale of one to five for how prevalent the virus is – with one being minimal restrictions needed and five being very severe restrictions and closures of shops and pubs.
The rating will be decided on the cases per hundred thousand over a two week period, rather than individual daily numbers, with other inputs considered. It’s been a political decision to delay taking action in Dublin.
Senior Ministers want to give the capital the weekend for people to take their own personal responsibility and limit contacts to reduce the spread of COVID.
It would also prefer to make all the big decisions for the next phase in one big go next Tuesday and reset all the current advice.
But without a change in those numbers there will be further restrictions in the capital next week.
