27 new COVID-19 cases confirmed
Twenty Seven new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed by the HSE, bringing the total on the island of Ireland to 90.
The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) announced the new cases at a briefing in Dublin today.
The country’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said two of the new cases are believed to have been transmitted within the community.
Meanwhile, 22 are associated with local transmission and three are associated with travel.
Man jailed over COVID-19 flight “pandemonium”
A man has been jailed for causing “pandemonium” on board a flight to Dublin by announcing that his mother, with whom he’d been in contact with, had coronavirus.
Job Van Der Broek, a 30-year-old trainee driving instructor from Veghel in the Netherlands, was handed a two-month prison sentence.
Detective Gary Dillane said they were made aware of an incident on board Aer Lingus flight EI065 from Amsterdam to Dublin yesterday afternoon.
While cabin crew were doing their safety demo before take-off, the court heard Job Van der Broek refused to get off his phone.
Schools to close over COVID-19
Schools, colleges and cultural institutions across the country are set to close over the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Taoiseach made the announcement in Washington this morning, with the measures in place from tonight until March 29th.
He said there will be "many more cases" in Ireland and will continue to spread across the world - and that measures are now needed to try and halt the spread of the virus here.
The measures come into effect from 6pm today, with schools, colleges, childcare facilities and cultural institutions (such as museums, galleries and tourism sites) to close from tomorrow.
Varadkar meets Trump at White House
The US President has said the UK and Ireland were exempt from the travel ban he has placed on many European countries because they have “very strong borders.”
Donald Trump was speaking during a meeting with the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in the White House this afternoon.
Last night, President Trump announced that people who had visited any of 26 Schengen area countries in the past two weeks would not be allowed enter the US.
This afternoon, he appeared to forget that Ireland is not a part of the UK while explaining his reasoning for not including either entity in the ban.
Greens on government formation
A Green Party TD says her party feels that their time would be better spent "focusing completely" on the coronavirus pandemic rather than getting involved in full government formation talks.
Neasa Hourigan says she "cannot go into a room and argue about solar panels when people are dying".
Her party yesterday called for the different parties to suspend government talks and form a temporary national government to deal with the crisis.
It comes as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are due to begin detailed negotiations on a potential coalition.
