DUBLIN (Reuters) – The number of people in Ireland infected by someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 fell to close to 1.0 from an estimate of 1.3 to 1.4 a week ago, the head of Ireland’s COVID-19 modeling group said on Friday.
Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group, has said the so-called “reproduction rate” must be be cut to 0.5 for six weeks to reduce cases below 200 per day and keep them there until the end of December. Ireland reported 772 new cases on Friday.
“This is the first time in three months that I’ve been able to report positive indications that we are starting to suppress transmission of the virus,” Nolan told a news conference, a week after Ireland moved to the highest level of COVID-19 restrictions.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
