The country’s top doctors’ advice to people who have arrived from the UK since December 11th to isolate for 14 days means they should eat Christmas dinner alone in their bedroom!
HSE Chief Clinical Officer Dr Colm Henry has pleaded with people who have arrived home from the UK to heed public health advice
He said to not, could make them the “not be the agent of transmission” of the new strain of Covid-19 evident in London.
Upgraded public health advice means those arriving from Britain since December 8th are now asked to self-isolate in their room for 14 days, rather than restricting their movements, which allows for mingling within their household.
“We appreciate how inconvenient this is, how painful this must be for people who have waited so long to come home, but we know this is a highly transmissible form of the virus,” Dr Henry said.
“Self-isolation means staying in your room in so far as possible, except for essential purposes. You should stay in your room to ensure you are not the means of transmission of this more transmissible form of the virus within the house.”
Asked if this meant eating Christmas dinner in their room, Dr Henry said it “sadly” did mean that. He said that self-isolating was not novel “in our collective national experience”.
“It is difficult, it is painful, we have learned to our cost that delay in taking action to prevent spread, transmission of the virus, we will pay for it if we do so.”
It comes as more than 20 flights into Ireland from London in the first three weeks of December contained at least one passenger who subsequently tested positive for Covid-19.
