Government leaders are expected to make a decision before Christmas on a recommendation from the chief medical officer, Prof Breda Smyth, that people travelling on public transport should start wearing face masks again.
Prof Smyth and HSE chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry have expressed concern this week about a significant increase in cases of Covid-19 and other seasonal respiratory diseases in circulation, including flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and Strep A.
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan said on Thursday that he expected Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to convene a meeting of the Cabinet sub-committee on Covid-19 to discuss Prof Smyth’s views on a return to mask-wearing for those travelling on buses, trains and trams and in taxis.
The chief medical officer on Wednesday noted a 75 per cent weekly increase in flu cases and a 35 per cent increase in related hospitalisations, with 19 people in intensive care units. The number of children aged under 14 in hospital with flu has increased by 65 per cent in the past week.
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Covid-19 cases have also increased sharply at a time when there has been a significant fall-off in the number of people seeking boosters to protect against the disease.
Dr Henry urged people using public transport or who found themselves in congested settings to wear face coverings. A mandatory requirement for people to take such protective measures on public transport ended on February 28th last.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday about the issue, Mr Ryan said: “We will have to meet on that and obviously listen to what the chief medical officer’s advice is. The mechanisms we established during Covid have served us well, so we will have to reconvene. The Department of the Taoiseach and my department (Department of Transport) will feed in and provide our input.”
Mr Ryan said the first decision that needed to be made would be by the Department of Taoiseach to call a meeting.
Asked if this would happen before Christmas, he recalled the response to the spread of the UK or Alpha Covid-19 variant during the 2020 Christmas period. He said that “within half an hour of finding out about it, I was on the phone to the UK minister saying we should shut down air travel with the UK, so sometimes you have to act fast but that’s not decided yet. We will wait for the Department of the Taoiseach to call.”
