Health officials are examining ways to ease the burden of the lockdown on families and children.
The National Public Health Emergency Team will meet today – with potential changes to restrictions on people under the age of 18-years-old up for discussion.
The team will also consider potential changes to testing guidelines and the ongoing spread of the virus in meat processing plants.
Children in lockdown
On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, HSE Chief Clinical Officer Dr Colm Henry said officials would be “looking carefully at what measures we can take to ease the burden on families” – but warned that any changes would be made “incrementally and with great care.”
He said he is acutely aware of the damage preventing young children from socialising can cause to their development.
“We are very aware, and I am very aware as a doctor and a parent, of how damaging this can be, in terms of the disruption of healthcare services in the case of my job and in the case of cutting people off from their friends in my role as a parent,” he said.
“We are very aware of that; we are not beyond considering the impacts on our own personal lives and those our friends too.
“But bear in mind, every country is struggling with this. We see attempts right across Europe and right across the world to reopen society but it has to be done in a way that we avoid creating a crisis that is worse – namely uncontrolled community transmission with the horrible scenes we saw in places like northern Italy and Spain.”
He said the current advice remains that people can meet people outdoors in groups of four or less for short periods of time while maintaining social distancing.
Testing
He said potential changes to virus testing policy would also be on the agenda.
“We are changing our testing policy all the time and this morning at NPHET, we will be considering an updated testing policy, not just for people transferring from hospital but for healthcare workers and for other people in society,” he said.
“We have built up our testing to 300,000 tests and the turnaround time is much quicker and now, fortunately, we are in a position where we have a good capacity for testing and we can use that testing.”
He said the current policy stipulates that no-one should be transferred back to residential care home from a hospital until they had two negative tests in a row.
He said doctors are encourage to order tests for their patients if there is “any suspicion whatsoever.”
