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COVID-19: Older people expected to be allowed time to exercise outdoors

Older people who are cocooning are expected to be allowed time to exercise outdoors every day whe...
Jack Quann
Jack Quann

08.32 23 Apr 2020


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COVID-19: Older people expecte...

COVID-19: Older people expected to be allowed time to exercise outdoors

Jack Quann
Jack Quann

08.32 23 Apr 2020


Share this article


Older people who are cocooning are expected to be allowed time to exercise outdoors every day when the Government begins to ease coronavirus restrictions.

Under plans being developed those over-70 will still be asked to cocoon, but will not be forced to stay in their homes 24 hours a day from next month.

The Irish Independent says specific times designated for older people to use parks and local amenities are part of the measures being considered.

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It is also expected that the ban on non-essential travel will be eased slightly to allow people go beyond two kilometres.

Dr Liam Glynn is a professor of General Practice at the University of Limerick and a GP from Co Clare.

He told Newstalk Breakfast we have to be careful with the lifting of any restrictions.

"I think we can be certainly planning it at this point.

"The thing to be clear about though is this is the first wave of COVID-19 - and we probably have achieved something like 10% immunity in the population with this particular wave.

"But as night follows day, if we release all restrictions tomorrow we will get another significant surge in COVID-19 infections - that's the thing everybody's got to bear in mind.

"We need to go through this in a controlled way".

"We can start to plan easing restrictions, but we can only do it - it's like a wartime situation: we have to know ourselves and we have to know our enemy - and we get this knowledge from testing.

"We have the capacity to ease restrictions and everybody wants that to happen, but we have to have also the capacity to generate the data we need to know what the effect of easing those restrictions are and whether we need to change our approach".

COVID-19: Older people expected to be allowed time to exercise outdoors

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Main image: An old elderly woman waits for a bus in Dublin. Picture by: Mark Stedman/RollingNews.ie

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