A suggestion to delay Christmas until January to stop the spread of COVID-19 has been dismissed by infectious diseases expert Professor Jack Lambert.
Earlier today, Trinity Professor Tomás Ryan suggested Christmas should be delayed for a month to ensure we get the most out of coronavirus lockdown.
He told Newstalk Breakfast that the country could find itself back at 1,000 cases a day by January if we reopen as planned in December.
Professor Lambert, a consultant in Infectious Diseases, responded to the suggestion on The Hard Shoulder - saying that delaying Christmas isn't a practical approach.
He said: "I think that's a very Grinch-est comment to make... that we should delay Christmas to January. Absolutely not.
"If you open up next week, then maybe it will flare up in December... if you open in January maybe it will flare up in February. There's lots of maybes here.
"The question is how can we live with COVID... not remain in fear with COVID, where the only plan is lockdown and ban international travel... we need to come up with practical solutions."
Professor Lambert said we need to spend the next three weeks of lockdown preparing 'COVID prevention strategies' in the community - suggesting that didn't happen when we exited lockdown earlier this year.
He said: "If we get out of lockdown in December, and everybody is queuing on Henry Street, going shopping without a mask... it's going to be a super-spreader event.
"We need to come up with really different plans when we come out of lockdown, regardless of when it is. I think wearing a mask is a critical part of that."
Reopening plans
Earlier today, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the target is to reopen the country at level three restrictions - but that the Government is examining changes that could potentially allow some additional businesses to reopen.
Donal O’Keeffe, chief executive of the Licensed Vintners Association, said publicans are still uncertain about when they'll be able to reopen for the festive season.
He said: "We clearly want to reopen for indoor service on the first of December.
"We showed when food pubs were open that we could manage public health guidelines very carefully.
"Christmas is going to have a huge amount of socialising in the country... it's going to happen in home settings, as of course it should. We want it to happen in the 7,000 pubs across the country which will provide safe, controlled environments for people to socialise."
He said December is a "critical month" for pubs and his group is calling on the Government to allow them to trade.
Meanwhile, Arnold Dillon of Retail Ireland said his sector is planning to be up-and-running from December 1st.
He said: "We were promised a four-week review period when the six-week restrictions were announced. There have been very significant reductions in the number of COVID transmission [since then].
"What does need to be on the agenda is potentially looking to unwind some of those restrictions around retail in advance of December.
"There's a very good public health reason for that - leaving just a three-week window of retail trading in the run-up to Christmas does present retailers with very significant challenges around managing the number of people in stores and potentially queues outside."
He said there are also important economic reasons to allow shops reopen in the coming weeks, after a 'very tough year' for many retailers.
