A leading GP in the fight against COVID-19 has said the response of Ireland’s testing and tracing system to the recent surge in cases has been very good.
It comes after the Government lifted lockdown restrictions on Laois and Offaly but said they would remain in place in Kildare for another two weeks.
The acting Chief Medical Officer said the country has seen over 1,200 new cases in the past two weeks – around 500 of which are related to outbreaks in food businesses and Direct Provision centres.
He said over 200 are related to community transmission.
Workplace outbreaks have been well documented and the large ones in meat and other food businesses account for about 360 of the cases reported in recent weeks. 4/12
— Dr Ronan Glynn (@ronan_glynn) August 19, 2020
However, these outbreaks are just part of the story. For example, while they account for approximately 500 cases between them, we have had over 1,200 cases reported in the last 14 days alone. 6/12
— Dr Ronan Glynn (@ronan_glynn) August 19, 2020
On Newstalk Breakfast with Eamon Torsney today, Dr Ray Walley, member of the GP Expert Advisory Group on COVID-19, said the testing and tracing system is performing well – despite a slowdown in the weeks when the country was experiencing fewer cases.
“It is nigh impossible to maintain 100% adrenaline and 100% attention all the time,” he said.
“You have to have peaks and troughs. I think certainly the experience in the last two weeks have shown good experience in terms of how we have addressed it.”
He said the median turnaround time for testing and tracing is about 2.9 days, which he said was “very good.”
“It is important that the message is that you isolate if you are symptomatic and you contact your GP for testing and as result of that the tracing, if necessary, comes in,” he said.
“On the basis of that, we will successfully deal with this and that has been working well.”
Tracing
Dr Walley said the lifting of the lockdown in Laois and Offaly has shown that the localised lockdown was the right decision and said doctors are “optimistic that similar will happen in Kildare.”
“I think certainly in general practice we have shown ourselves to be dynamic and flexible and the healthcare service, with regard to testing and tracing, has similarly done so,” he said.
“I am optimistic that our experience in the last few weeks has been good.”
Schools
The Dublin GP said the return to school will be “challenging” but noted that the experience internationally shows that child transmission of the virus is uncommon.
“With regard to the outbreaks both internationally and nationally, children are not the primary drivers of COVID-19 transmission to adults and adults are not higher risk for COVID-19 in school settings than in communities or households,” he said.
“The evidence to date is that schools are not driving infections in communities.”
Education
He said the health system will need a “heightened awareness” are children go back to school but noted that education must take priority.
“We have one million students and I certainly have children that are students and our focus has to be to try to get our children back to education,” he said.
Dr Walley said GPs have been preparing for the return to school for weeks and noted that children will receive the flu vaccine this year to reduce the potential for surge in winter illness.
