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Coronavirus: Sharp drop in Republic's infection rate

Professor Gabriel Scally. Picture by Mark Marlow
Professor Gabriel Scally. Picture by Mark Marlow Professor Gabriel Scally. Picture by Mark Marlow

The chief executive of the Republic's Health Service Executive has appealed to the public to keep up their sacrifices as new figures show the coronavirus infection rate has dropped significantly.

Paul Reid tweeted: "I'm always an optimist and all of your sacrifices are helping. They really are. But it is far too early to be a trend. So a special plea to everyone to keep it going. In the HSE, we will continue to scale up to help us tackle the worst, as best we can."

It comes as experts on the National Public Health Emergency Team welcomed data showing the infection rate has dropped from 33 per cent to 15 per cent since restrictions on public life were first introduced earlier this month.

Leading epidemiologist Professor Philip Nolan said it would be another seven to 10 days before it could be determined whether the latest clampdown on movement, imposed by the Dublin government on Friday night, had helped to further cut the infection rate.

The Republic's death toll rose to 54 on Monday, following the report of eight more deaths.

A total of 295 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 were reported in the Republic, the highest daily total so far, bringing the overall number to 2,910.

Monday also saw the government formalise an agreement with private hospitals to use all of their facilities during the Covid-19 crisis.

Meanwhile, thousands of people who have lost their jobs as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic are due to receive their first benefit payment today.

The Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment was introduced two weeks ago and 389,000 people applied for the payment.

Dr Gabriel Scally, a public health expert, said that Northern Ireland and the Republic must harmonise their response to Covid-19.

The Belfast-born president of the Royal Society of Medicine's epidemiology and public health section warns of the dangers in a special platform piece in today's Irish News.

Speaking to RTÉ Radio's Sean O'Rourke show he added: "My concerns are that we've got two different regimes operating in the North and South insofar as this outbreak is concerned.

"Even that issue about isolation times, if you happen to develop symptoms of the coronavirus in Dundalk, you'll be asked to self-isolate for 14 days. If you develop exactly the same symptoms a few miles away in Newry you'll be asked to self-isolate for seven days.

"The South has an excellent programme of testing... but in the north they abandoned testing.

"There's no community testing going on so they're fighting this fire blind.

"These are just some of the big differences.

"It would be nonsense to have restrictions on people coming off planes in Dublin and not have exactly the same restrictions on people coming off planes in Belfast.

"Let's put all our histories to the side and let's work on what's best for the people on the island because we've a big advantage on an island, and we will squander that advantage if we don't take a unified approach to dealing with this problem.

"There's a huge amount of movement across the border and we can't have it that the north removes their restrictions at one point and then the south at another point.

"It's completely out of sync. There really needs to be some north/south harmonisation.

"It's in everyone's interests."