NPHET concerned about new cases arising from travel

odyssey06

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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
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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 ?
 
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.
 
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.......
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.

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