Coronavirus: Public urged to be responsible citizens
People being responsible citizens is the most important part of the State’s strategy in containing the coronavirus, the Department of Health has stressed.
“Ireland remains in a containment phase. We have not yet identified a single confirmed case,” said the department’s chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan.
He referred to the willingness of people to report if they had symptoms of coronavirus after travelling to an at-risk area.
“If individuals feel that they are not in a position to report symptoms, that reduces the chance that we can detect those cases and put in place the containment measures around them.
“The public being with us and understanding and acting on the basis of our advice is probably the most important part of our strategy in the containment phase.
“Anything that might impact on people’s willingness to report is something that we wouldn’t regard as helpful in terms of our management of this.”
Dr Holohan, who was speaking at a media briefing, said people would not have to wait for a test result in a hospital if they were well enough to go home.
“There are self-isolation guidelines that we will be making available to people, and all the practical measures they can take to limit their contact and the likelihood of passing on an infection,” he said.
“This is really in the eventuality that the test proved positive. In the 90 cases tested in this country, none have proved positive.”
Dr Holohan confirmed that a statutory instrument under the Infectious Diseases Regulations, signed last week, could be used if an individual refused to self-isolate.
He thought it would be extremely unlikely that anyone would refuse to comply with the advice and guidance given by a public health professional, however.
He was also concerned that emphasising this power to detain people would make people reluctant to report symptoms.
“We are really dependent on people understanding what we do and acting in the way that we would want them to do.”
Director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, Dr Cillian De Gascun, said they were in a position to “scale up” if necessary.
Learn about hand hygiene and preventing the spread of Covid-19 (#Coronavirus) pic.twitter.com/egojfAmBTh
— HSE Ireland (@HSELive) February 26, 2020
HSE director of acute operations, Liam Woods, said the national isolation unit in the Mater Hospital that had a 12-bed capacity would be most likely a place to be used for coronavirus cases.
Mr Woods said the cases would have an impact on intensive care units and it was an issue being considered by the crisis management team.
Health Minister Simon Harris said containment was not about being able to prevent all cases, it was about trying to reduce the risk of the virus spreading.
“I can assure the Irish people that everything that can be done from a public health point of view is being done, that we have our best minds working on this and they are working extremely hard,” he said.
If a situation was reached where there were several cases, the HSE has planned to have an isolation facility in every hospital, but that would be kept under review as the situation evolved, he added.
He had told the HSE that whatever resources were required to deal with an outbreak of coronavirus would be provided.
