# NPHET concerned about new cases arising from travel



## odyssey06

THE NATIONAL PUBLIC Health Emergency Team has said there is “a bit of a concern” about an increase in Covid-19 cases in Ireland as a result of travel.
At a Department of Health briefing this evening, health officials have said that “fewer than 10″ such cases have been recorded over the past two weeks.
Professor Philip Nolan, chair of NPHET’s Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said that travel from Sweden and the UK account for two of the cases


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## scallywag

I don't understand why we should be concerned at all about travel, as long as people arriving into the country are not coming from countries with significantly higher infection rates. If people from say Germany arrive into Dublin, is it any worse than say people from Galway arriving into Dublin? Or people from Blanchardstown going to Dublin city centre?


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## odyssey06

It's not just infection rates, it is how quickly the testing \ tracing regime is so that if another outbreak occurred how quickly could it be contained without it then being passed to tourists who then spread it all around Europe, as happened in N Italy first time around.
From that perspective, I guess the concern is the more people you have going to more places the more likely it is they'd hit such a pocket.

Especially when it's the UK where realistically the border is always open.


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## Drakon

scallywag said:


> If people from say Germany arrive into Dublin, is it any worse than say people from Galway arriving into Dublin? Or people from Blanchardstown going to Dublin city centre?



Yes. Germany has an R^0 which has risen to 2.88 recently. 
Ireland’s R^0 is about 0.5. 
Huge difference.


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## joe sod

Surely the focus should shift away from people going on holidays in europe when the new clusters introduced again came from third countries Iraq, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Therefore surely we should be focussing the restrictions on people coming in from outside Europe now . It is obvious that very small numbers of people are travelling from these countries yet they have been responsible for bringing in new infections because the corona virus must be out of control there. The numbers coming in from Europe even now are much greater yet no problems with re introduction of corona virus.


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## TarfHead

joe sod said:


> It is *obvious* that very small numbers of people are travelling from *these countries* yet they have been *responsible *for bringing in new infections because the corona virus *must be out of control* there.



Care to stand up any credible evidence to stand up those assertions ?


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## Drakon

TarfHead said:


> Care to stand up any credible evidence to stand up those assertions ?



The case of the Iraqi with the virus infecting a number of residents in a DPC in the NW has been well covered in the media in the last few days.


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## Sunny

TarfHead said:


> Care to stand up any credible evidence to stand up those assertions ?



They said it themselves in their briefing. Cases came from Irish tourism hotspots like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ukraine and Sweden. Also included the UK and the US but no France, Spain or Italy.......


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## joe sod

That's the point the focus now seems to be on preventing people going on holidays to low risk countries in Europe. However the striking evidence is that new infections are now coming from people travelling from hotspots outside Europe even though they are very small numbers of these. Therefore the focus should be on these hotspots and mandatory quarantine in a hotel near airport but lift the ridiculous quarantine on trave from low risk countries in Europe.


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## Leo

joe sod said:


> Therefore the focus should be on these hotspots



The risk factor is made up of a combination of the prevalence of COVID-19 in the general population in the origin country multiplied by the numbers travelling from that country. You might be 1,000 times more likely to contract COVID-19 in Iraq than mainland Europe, but if we have 10,000 times more people arriving from Europe, it's those people that present the greater risk.


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## joe sod

Leo said:


> The risk factor is made up of a combination of the prevalence of COVID-19 in the general population in the origin country multiplied by the numbers travelling from that country. You might be 1,000 times more likely to contract COVID-19 in Iraq than mainland Europe, but if we have 10,000 times more people arriving from Europe, it's those people that present the greater risk.


Yes that's true, but you are not factoring the economic and social cost , if there is 1000 people travelling to Europe versus 1 to Iraq and they have the same risk, the 1000 tourists and holidays have huge benefits in terms of economy and social morale, the 1 person travelling to Iraq has negligible economic benefit as a whole, therefore the risk of spreading infection by 1000 holidays to Europe a is risk worth taking simply because of the added benefits, risk and reward.


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## Leo

joe sod said:


> Yes that's true, but you are not factoring the economic and social cost ,



True, I was just talking risk, the post I relied to didn't mention reward or economics.



joe sod said:


> therefore the risk of spreading infection by 1000 holidays to Europe a is risk worth taking simply because of the added benefits, risk and reward.



Wouldn't 1,000 holidays to Europe just take money out of the economy? (I know foreign tourists spend more here than we do when abroad, but how many of the big spenders are we likely to see I wonder?)


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## Purple

Covid 19 will be with us for the foreseeable future. It would be far more useful if NPHET focused their considerable intellect on telling us what we should do in order to travel safely. Testing everyone at arrivals in the airport would be a good start. There are plenty of hotels in the area that people can be bussed to while they wait for their results.


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## joer

If there was a message from NPHET and the Government saying DO NOT travel then people would have to stay home. I understand that things have to get back to normal at some stage but until Covid has been beaten there cannot be mixed messages. If Ireland had been locked down straight away  in March things might have been so much better now, I think anyway. Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course.


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## Leo

joer said:


> If Ireland had been locked down straight away in March things might have been so much better now, I think anyway. Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course.



Most of the confirmed early travel related cases were Irish people returning home, and even a few who went to great lengths to avoid restrictions so they could still go on their ski trip. We even had the person who went to choir practice while waiting for their test result despite being told to isolate. An earlier lock down would have done nothing for those cases.


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## joer

I agree but right now there are too many mixed messages as to travel or do not travel. Open schools or do not open schools etc.


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## Drakon

I think there’ve been fewer mixed messages in the last week. 
Health officials are “very concerned” and the minister has said that it’s a “serious issue”.
AFAIK we’re due to get a detailed update on 9th July.  If people can’t hold off ‘til after that date on booking a flight then that’s up to them.

People seem to be forgetting that the pandemic is getting worse. Improvements in Ireland do not equate to an end of it. 
And countries like Portugal are going backwards.


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## joer

I can see why people want to travel though as there is so many problems with refunds etc. Personally I would not travel .


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## odyssey06

joer said:


> I can see why people want to travel though as there is so many problems with refunds etc. Personally I would not travel .



The airlines hotels etc didn't want to give cash refunds back even for cancellations when they couldn't fly \ open.
Then you have the people who want to cancel their plans but the airlines are flying and hotels are open, and insurance won't cover it.
It's a pity the governments couldn't have put together a deal whereby just vouchers are given out, but people can request the vouchers without penalty.
That might have been more acceptable for airlines.

It's obviously an easier decision not to travel if you haven't booked anywhere yet.
But if you've booked, are in in low risk group and can isolate on return, I can understand why you would still travel.


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## joe sod

Drakon said:


> People seem to be forgetting that the pandemic is getting worse. Improvements in Ireland do not equate to an end of it.
> And countries like Portugal are going backwards


But in general the situation in Europe has vastly improved since March and now Europe is on its guard and picking up these new infections quickly. The big rise is happening unfortunately in poor countries outside Europe. It was always going to be the case that infections would rise considerably when we went from severe lockdown to controlled opening up. The corollary is that because infections will rise when restrictions are lifted we keep everything on lockdown indefinitely. Firstly this is unaffordable it was financed by money printing but you can only print money for a short period or else you start approaching a Zimbabwe situation. You can't print houses , food and pharmaceuticals.  The real economy cannot be locked down indefinitely even if it is the case that corona virus rises considerably. Even Leo varadker said this, we can never go into total lockdown again , there will be local lockdowns and red list countries where travel is restricted.


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## Drakon

I agree with you but I draw the line at unrestricted pleasure travel.


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## Drakon

I gave some statistics yesterday that were deleted the moderator as “nonsense stats”.
TBF, he/she was correct, I had them totally  garbled.  Here goes again in plain English. 
(As for the links if deemed necessary).

According to (the cautious) Sam McConkey, there is *a one-in-a-million *chance of catching C19 in the community.
According to Minister Donnelly, foreign travel accounts for *17%* of new cases.

When you contrast the risks, they’re incomparable.
Lift the lockdown, lock the borders.


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## Sunny

Drakon said:


> I gave some statistics yesterday that were deleted  the moderator. I assume he/she did so because of the garbled terminology I used, so here goes again.
> 
> According to (the cautious) Sam McConkey, there is a one-in-a-million chance of catching C19 in the community.
> According to Minister Donnelly, foreign travel accounts for 17% of new cases.
> 
> When you contrast the risks, they’re incomparable.
> Lift the lockdown, lock the borders.



You are doing it again! There are completely different statistics. You are comparing apples with exotic pineapples so I have no idea what you are contrasting.

17% of new cases are travel related which includes people who have been infected by person travelling. 83% of new cases are not travel related so should we enter lockdown again and close everything down?


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## Leo

Drakon said:


> When you contrast the risks, they’re incomparable.



They are incomparable because it is a meaningless comparison. 



Drakon said:


> Lift the lockdown



You know the one-in-a-million only applies with the current restrictions?


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## Drakon

I’ll put it another was so. 
At this moment in time, first week of July, you invite three friends to dinner:
Paddy Portuguese Man, Paddy Meatplant Worker Man and Paddy Kerryman.

You meet no one for a week afterward but you happen to have the bug?
Who are you least suspicious of?


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## Drakon

And my last words in this thread for today...

The first case in Ireland came from... abroad.


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## Sunny

Drakon said:


> I’ll put it another was so.
> At this moment in time, first week of July, you invite three friends to dinner:
> Paddy Portuguese Man, Paddy Meatplant Worker Man and Paddy Kerryman.
> 
> You meet no one for a week afterward but you happen to have the bug?
> Who are you least suspicious of?



I give up. Who?


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## Sunny

Drakon said:


> And my last words in this thread for today...
> 
> The first case in Ireland came from... abroad.



And there was me thinking it as because we were slaughtering monkeys and bats at the the marts.......


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## Leo

Drakon said:


> And my last words in this thread for today...
> 
> The first case in Ireland came from... abroad.



Good idea. 

You know that with the exception of China, the first case everywhere came from abroad!


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## EmmDee

Drakon said:


> When you contrast the risks, they’re incomparable.
> Lift the lockdown, lock the borders.



Otherwise known as the US approach


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## Drakon

joer said:


> I agree but right now there are too many mixed messages as to travel or do not travel. Open schools or do not open schools etc.





Drakon said:


> I think there’ve been fewer mixed messages in the last week.



I take it back. The mixed messages are still around and probably worse. Did you hear the WHO’s David Nabarro being interviewed on RTÉ Radio?

His closing statement was, “when in doubt, don’t travel”.
Then he was asked if he has any plans to fly in the near future.
“YESSSSS”, he replied, full of excitement. “I haven’t seen my three week old grandson yet, and I’m flying to Britain (!) to see him.”


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## Allpartied

The coronavirus is, most likely, going to rumble on for years.  Especially as we are intent on containing it as much as possible.  As a result it will crop up in clusters all over the place.
I have a feeling that the current practices will break down over the next few months, even though the virus will live amongst us. 
As for travel, there really is no bigger risk going to Spain or Italy.  Holiday makers there can spend most of their time outside.  Even in restaurants or bars, the outside terraces are much much safer than huddling together under the same roof in a rain soaked coastal town in Ireland.


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## Drakon

However, if you huddling under the same roof in a coastal Irish town, you’re probably mingling with Irish people. We’ve the “best figures” in Europe in the last three week.

But if you’re in Spain, you’re probably in a tourist area. With people from other European countries, eg UK, where C19 is still a problem.

30 areas of Spain have experienced C19 flare-ups in the last week or so. Two regions have put 400,000 under a second lockdown.

Unlikely to happen in Ballybunion or Tramore.


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## Allpartied

Drakon said:


> However, if you huddling under the same roof in a coastal Irish town, you’re probably mingling with Irish people. We’ve the “best figures” in Europe in the last three week.
> 
> But if you’re in Spain, you’re probably in a tourist area. With people from other European countries, eg UK, where C19 is still a problem.
> 
> 30 areas of Spain have experienced C19 flare-ups in the last week or so. Two regions have put 400,000 under a second lockdown.
> 
> Unlikely to happen in Ballybunion or Tramore.


Really?  There are loads of tourists in the country.  I met a couple of Americans in my local town. They hired a boat and were jauntily hopping from one town to another. If the airports are open and the airlines are flying, they're not landing at Dublin airport with no passengers.


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## joer

I do not think that tourists ever stopped coming to our "great little country".....


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## Drakon

Allpartied said:


> If the airports are open and the airlines are flying, they're not landing at Dublin airport with no passengers.



No, that is true. The volume of flight are down by 92% though. And not all air passengers are tourists. But all air passengers all meant to self-isolate for two weeks.


FWIW, Simon Coveney says that international travellers pose the greatest C19 risk.
Ultimately, I don’t care. COVID-19 won’t kill me or my family. But for the health of the nation..


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## Leo

Drakon said:


> COVID-19 won’t kill me or my family. But for the health of the nation.



Just curious as to why you seem so confident about that?


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## joe sod

Allpartied said:


> As for travel, there really is no bigger risk going to Spain or Italy. Holiday makers there can spend most of their time outside. Even in restaurants or bars, the outside terraces are much much safer than huddling together under the same roof in a rain soaked coastal town in Ireland.


Yes I agree, as well as that the reopening of pubs on July 20 is now in doubt, we can't restrict travel and also restrict what people can do if they do not travel, it's either one or the other or the restrictions will be ignored. If we focus on restricting travel which seems to be the case then we need to relax restrictions on pubs. We live in a wet country people need somewhere to go when there is bad weather. We were spoiled during the lockdown with the good weather which explains a lot why it was largely complied with. The lockdown was also strangely popular but politicians would want to be wary that this will last much longer


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## Drakon

joe sod said:


> ...it's either one or the other ...



I couldn’t agree with you more. I’d say the authorities are waiting to see what happens on the coming two Saturday nights.

Based on Sam McConkey’s figures last month I estimate there are no more than ten cases “in the community” in Ireland.
This is a tiny figure and should be zero by 20 July.

But the figures abroad are greater than zero.

Of course, politics will come into play too.
Leo had a approval rating of 75% on leaving office. It had doubled because of his handling of the pandemic.
MM will be looking for approval too. I’m not sure if repeating Leo’s approach will work.


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## Leo

Drakon said:


> I estimate there are no more than ten cases “in the community” in Ireland.


 
With 58 cases confirmed in the last week, mostly in the community, plus an unknown number of asymptomatic carriers, how are you coming up with that figure? Within days of GAA training returning, there are already a number of teams forced into isolation after team members have tested positive.


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## joe sod

Drakon said:


> Leo had a approval rating of 75% on leaving office. It had doubled because of his handling of the pandemic.
> MM will be looking for approval too. I’m not sure if repeating Leo’


Yes to be honest I don't think MM would delay the reopening, too much of the economy now depends on this reopening with many planning holidays for after this date. Alan Kelly made the same point, a lot of the tourist industry is dependent on this reopening and that a small number of idiots in dame lane should not be allowed derail this.


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## joer

Why not penalize the idiots and not the business people and customers who are trying to do the right thing.


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## Drakon

Leo said:


> With 58 cases confirmed in the last week, mostly in the community,..


In the community, is it? You show me your source and I’ll show you mine.


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## Leo

Drakon said:


> In the community, is it? You show me your source and I’ll show you mine.



You proposed your number of 10 first, why can't you just share your source? My numbers are based on the NPHET releases.


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## IsleOfMan

Leo said:


> With 58 cases confirmed in the last week, mostly in the community, plus an unknown number of asymptomatic carriers, how are you coming up with that figure? Within days of GAA training returning, there are already a number of teams forced into isolation after team members have tested positive.


There were 24 cases yesterday. Do we have a breakdown as to where these cases are?  If not, why are we not being given more detailed information.
I would love to know if these 24 people picked it up in a nursing home, health worker, visiting the supermarket, at a funeral, playing poker with friends, getting a take out meal...….. 

Leo, where did you find the information about the GAA?

If I knew a little more information I could avoid doing certain things and not be so concerned about doing other stuff.


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## Leo

IsleOfMan said:


> Leo, where did you find the information about the GAA?



Friends involved in running clubs, James Stephens in Kilkenny issued a statement confirming their case on Saturday.


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## EmmDee

Was talking to a few friends yesterday - they mentioned people they knew had bumped into a lot of Americans in Kerry and other stories of people coming over from UK through the ports and staying at hotels.

Not sure how much to rely on anecdotal evidence but a bit of a concern if true


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## joe sod

EmmDee said:


> Was talking to a few friends yesterday - they mentioned people they knew had bumped into a lot of Americans in Kerry and other stories of people coming over from UK through the ports and staying at hotels.



Yes but we still need a tourism industry so hopefully not a return to the mini witch hunt that was going on in April towards outsiders. Leo varadker also made reference to this we don't need a new "valley of the squinting windows"


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## Sunny

There is already a witch hunt. Look at social media and the flight arriving from Dallas this morning...Does make a mockery of telling people that they can't travel to parts of France,Italy, Spain where they have the same virus levels as us if not better and allowing planes to arrive in from parts of the US where the virus is rampant......


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## EmmDee

joe sod said:


> Yes but we still need a tourism industry so hopefully not a return to the mini witch hunt that was going on in April towards outsiders. Leo varadker also made reference to this we don't need a new "valley of the squinting windows"



The current policy is that anybody arriving to Ireland should isolate for 2 weeks. So Government policy is to discourage external tourism. You can argue that the policy should change but my question is whether policy is being followed at all.

I have family who are living abroad who are planning to come here in August and are booking an AirBnB for 2 weeks near the airport - they are going to isolate and work from there for 2 weeks and then take their holidays.


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## johnwilliams

emmdee "The current policy is that anybody arriving to Ireland should isolate for 2 weeks "when ff mep billy kelleher flew in from Brussels for  michael martins election to taoiseach  without self isolating cant expect other to do it ,actually it went very quiet with  all attention on cohan


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## odyssey06

johnwilliams said:


> emmdee "The current policy is that anybody arriving to Ireland should isolate for 2 weeks "when ff mep billy kelleher flew in from Brussels for  michael martins election to taoiseach  without self isolating cant expect other to do it ,actually it went very quiet with  all attention on cohan



Not so much a policy as an aspiration... 
A policy = processes, procedures etc etc
Gov really needs to get real or give it up. Their poker face bluff has been called.


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## Bronco Lane

New cases in their 20's for 3 days now.

Why are we not being told where and how these cases came about. More specifics needed.

I understand that there has been an outbreak in Killarney due to a house party.

Is the government trying to keep us all in a state of fear by not providing more details?


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## Sunny

Bronco Lane said:


> New cases in their 20's for 3 days now.
> 
> Why are we not being told where and how these cases came about. More specifics needed.
> 
> I understand that there has been an outbreak in Killarney due to a house party.
> 
> Is the government trying to keep us all in a state of fear by not providing more details?



Yeah it's a mad case. Especially like it sounds like one person knew they were positive or travelled and found out he was positive down there. Where is the enforcement around that? They recently said that 35% of close contacts were refusing tests. Where is the enforcement of that? But social media hysteria around foreign travel and people standing around outside pubs has politicians and public health experts rushing to the airwaves.


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## odyssey06

Sunny said:


> Yeah it's a mad case. Especially like it sounds like one person knew they were positive or travelled and found out he was positive down there. Where is the enforcement around that? They recently said that 35% of close contacts were refusing tests. Where is the enforcement of that? But social media hysteria around foreign travel and people standing around outside pubs has politicians and public health experts rushing to the airwaves.



How was that one person infected? Was it connected to foreign travel? And if we have such reckless people, are we really ready for crowded pubs?
One day last week something like two-thirds out of 20+ cases were connected to foreign travel directly or indirectly.


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## joe sod

odyssey06 said:


> One day last week something like two-thirds out of 20+ cases were connected to foreign travel directly or indirectly.



but that foreign travel was related to very specific high risk countries outside europe which Tony holohan revealed in an off the cuff remark. Now they are clamping down again on specific information using generic terms like "foreign travel", we need to know the specifics because these outbreaks are related to specific incidents and highly unusual and irresponsible actions by a tiny minority. Therefore the response should be concentrated on that tiny minority now that they have much more intelligence and a proper testing regime.


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## RedOnion

joe sod said:


> but that foreign travel was related to very specific high risk countries outside europe which Tony holohan revealed in an off the cuff remark


I'm not saying the cases were not linked to high risk areas, but this only happened on Thursday (3 days ago), so Tony didn't reveal anything about it.

They are due to provide details tomorrow of the countries involved in the travel related cases.


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## Leo

Apart from getting all the facts straight for each case, the other problem arising from getting too specific on how these cases arise is that there could be a tendency for people to relax if they don't feel they are at risk from the couple of scenarios that might be discussed.


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## michaelg

Does anyone know why Americans are still allowed into the country ? apparently we are the only ones in the EU letting them in . I don't get it.


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## joe sod

America is much more important to the Irish economy than it is for any other European country, we will still need an economy when corona virus is finished.


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## Purple

The likelihood is that we will be living with Covid for the next few years, at least. Given that we will need to open up our economy and reopen our country to tourists so the priority should be to have fast and effective testing for people arriving here.


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## Sunny

You can make strong case for mandatory quarantine for people arriving from the US and other countries outside Europe like India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia etc. You can even make case for the UK but that is next to impossible. However, when you look at infection rates in Countries like Germany, Greece, Norway, Denmark Italy and France, it becomes much more difficult to justify why someone travelling from places like them is riskier than people from somewhere like Dublin converging on a holiday location like Lahinch or Killarney for the weekend. People from abroad know how to adhere to social distance and take other precautions just like the rest of us. Not like we managed to deal with this virus any better than most European Countries.


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## odyssey06

Sunny said:


> You can make strong case for mandatory quarantine for people arriving from the US and other countries outside Europe like India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia etc. You can even make case for the UK but that is next to impossible. However, when you look at infection rates in Countries like Germany, Greece, Norway, Denmark Italy and France, it becomes much more difficult to justify why someone travelling from places like them is riskier than people from somewhere like Dublin converging on a holiday location like Lahinch or Killarney for the weekend. People from abroad know how to adhere to social distance and take other precautions just like the rest of us. Not like we managed to deal with this virus any better than most European Countries.



The risk is in the multiplication of the numbers. Any of those places, including Ireland, can have mini outbreaks - Germany locked down a region recently. The wider you cast the net - even for the same risk - the more likely you are to hit it. When you add in the circulation of travel, that's how it can kick off again. You are buying more lotto tickets.
If we are going to open up to tourism, then it becomes even more important to actually enforce the social distancing restrictions in pubs, hotels, restaurants, with actual penalties. Focus the monitoring on tourist heavy locations.


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## Barney Magoo

Discussing all international travel as one is misleading and is being used to deter Irish people from going abroad when incoming travellers may be a higher risk to the country.

On RTE website today acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn was quoted saying...
"Countries from which people returned and subsequently tested positive - since the beginning of June - include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, France, Germany, India, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan, Portugal, Qatar, Sudan, Sweden, Ukraine, the UAE, UK and the United States," 

While strictly travel related without a doubt, how many are tourism related or related to journeys originating in Ireland? These must be mostly cases of returning expats as well as tourism originating in some of these countries. If these countries were closed to inward travel from Ireland and elsewhere how can people have returned from there since June unless they were already there pre-lockdown.


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## joe sod

Also the UK, France , Germany and US are vitally important countries for the Irish economy the others are not, therefore even though some infections have originated from these countries, the importance to the Irish economy far outweighs the infection risk. Therefore a differentiated response based on country of origin should be implemented.


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## michaelg

joe sod said:


> America is much more important to the Irish economy than it is for any other European country, we will still need an economy when corona virus is finished.


So your implying that we should let tourists in from a country that has one of the biggest number of cases in the world ? And that the yanks won't understand our reasons for closing the borders to them during these times ?


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## michaelg

joe sod said:


> Also the UK, France , Germany and US are vitally important countries for the Irish economy the others are not, therefore even though some infections have originated from these countries, the importance to the Irish economy far outweighs the infection risk. Therefore a differentiated response based on country of origin should be implemented.


Do you also mean that this importance to the economy outweighs peoples lives ?


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## IsleOfMan

Unfortunately you have those travellers who don't care about anybody but themselves. A lot of Americans cannot see that they have lost a huge amount of respect that was once there for them.


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## Nutso

Drakon said:


> No, that is true. The volume of flight are down by 92% though. And not all air passengers are tourists. But all air passengers all meant to self-isolate for two weeks.
> 
> 
> FWIW, Simon Coveney says that international travellers pose the greatest C19 risk.
> Ultimately, I don’t care. COVID-19 won’t kill me or my family. But for the health of the nation..



Drakon,
That's a big statement to make about a virus we still don't know enough about.  Have you seen the research from Italy which has shown that even people who had asymptomatic or mild infections have organ damage?  They believe now that it is a systemic infection, affecting all of the major organs and not just the respiratory system.  We don't know the long term affects of this yet.  I will certainly be doing my best to not get it and protect the more vulnerable people in my life.


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## horse7

The list of countries for safe travel does not seem to include any of the safest countries listed by Forbes,. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnko...tries-in-the-world-for-covid-19/#66ff0bbd68c5.  How was our list compiled?


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## Leo

horse7 said:


> The list of countries for safe travel does not seem to include any of the safest countries listed by Forbes,. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnko...tries-in-the-world-for-covid-19/#66ff0bbd68c5.  How was our list compiled?



Take a look at the criteria they used to come up with that list and you'll understand why.


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## horse7

Thanks leo, can you explain how the government compiled the list of 15 countries?


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## Leo

horse7 said:


> Thanks leo, can you explain how the government compiled the list of 15 countries?



The list is based on an assessment of risk of any one travelling from Ireland to those countries contracting the virus and bringing it back with them.


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## horse7

So,am I wrong in assuming that as we have a 5 per 100,000 cases of infection, that other countries with a similar or lower rate of infection, should be on the list?


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## odyssey06

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said that random testing at Irish airports is to be introduced amid a “volatile” situation abroad.  
Donnelly said this action would go in tandem with “an increased public health presence” ant entry points in the country...

Speaking about the situation globally, Donnelly said that it was “becoming more volatile” and that Ireland is to begin random testing at airports. 
“We’re introducing random testing at the airports and an increased public health presence. And we’re examining other options as well for further restrictions on non-essential travel because as you rightly say this the international situation is becoming more volatile,” he said. 









						Health Minister says random testing at airports is to be introduced
					

Stephen Donnelly refused to be drawn on the impending decision on whether to allow pubs to reopen.




					www.thejournal.ie


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## Leo

5 day average as reported yesterday is 45 new cases per day, only 8-10 of cases identified over the last two weeks have been associated with foreign travel.


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