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The Government is stockpiling Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in anticipation of a future second wave of Covid-19, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.
A second wave, or spike in Covid-19 cases, or indeed another type of virus was possible, and it was important to be prepared, he told RTÉ’s 2FM on Wednesday.
When asked about the Government’s decision not to make face coverings mandatory, Mr Varadkar said experts disagreed on this issue.
He said the best evidence was that face masks were important in medical situations and “can be of benefit” on public transport or in shops.
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The Taoiseach said face coverings are not “a magic shield” and that the Government will be undertaking a public information campaign on the correct way to wear face coverings and the importance of continuing good hand hygiene.
Speaking on RTÉ 2FM's Breakfast with Doireann and Eoghan show, he also indicated that the reopening date for hairdressers and salons was under review.
Mr Varadkar said the Government’s initial five phase roadmap to reopen the country from the coronavirus lockdown by August was “too slow,”
“We’re now working on revising phases four and five, so that we can have the country almost fully opened by the middle of July instead of the middle of August,” Mr Varadkar said.
“So the kind of things we are looking at is bringing forward the reopening of hairdressers and the salons, and a couple of the things like that,” he said. Work on amalgamating the latter half of the plan would be completed this week, he said.
Hairdressers and beauty salons were due to reopen on July 20th as part of the initial five-phase plan, with groups in the sector calling for outlets to be allowed to resume business earlier.
Mr Varadkar cautioned the plan was contingent on the virus being kept under control. “There is always the risk that it might make a comeback … It is possible that the worst is over, but it’s not over yet,” he said.
The topic of face masks has been discussed among the medical and health profession, with some experts calling for them to be made mandatory and others disagreeing.
Current advice from health officials in Ireland is that people are encouraged to wear coverings on public transport, shops and areas where people cannot maintain physical distancing.
Speaking earlier this week, chief medical officer Tony Holohan said Irish people can "do better" at wearing coverings to suppress the spread of the virus.
The National Public Health Emergency Team is also due to consider its advice for t he wearing of face coverings for over-60s.
Dr Cillian De Gascun, director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, said his recommendation is that people should wear face coverings if they are in a situation where physical distancing cannot be maintained.
Speaking on RTÉ radio's Today with Sarah McInerney show on Wednesday, Dr De Gascun said it had not been his intention, when commenting on cloth coverings at the Covid Committee on Tuesday, to cause confusion or reduce compliance.
He said his understanding of the most recent WHO recommendation, which was issued last weekend, was that cloth coverings can work for asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission.
“In that context it means previously we would have recommended masks for people who are symptomatic, masks have been used long before Covid-19 and will be used long into the future,” Dr De Gascun said.
“People who are symptomatic, anybody with a respiratory tract infection, if they can tolerate wearing a mask they should be wearing a mask when they go into hospital, to prevent onward transmission from somebody who is infected with something be it influenza or another human coronavirus.”
Masks are also used by healthcare workers to protect themselves when providing care to people who are infected with respiratory viruses, he added.
“What we’re talking about now is moving that out of the health care sector and into the community and the evidence around masks in the community - but there’s not a strong evidence base for it. Purely because a lot of the studies haven’t been done.
“We’re extrapolating from other viruses. We believe there is a role to play for masks or for cloth face coverings, but it’s only in the setting where physical distancing is not possible.”
Dr De Gascun said it was important “to get the nuance”: the absence of evidence doesn’t necessarily mean that it doesn’t work.
Currently, the public has been advised to not use medical-grade face masks, to ensure adequate supply remained for healthcare workers.
The new WHO guidance about medical-grade masks has not yet been reviewed by NPHET, he said.
There was good evidence that medical grade masks are better which was why they were worn by healthcare workers and why they should be preserved for healthcare workers, Dr De Gascun said.
“There are other concerns, such as waste issues, if people don’t use [masks] appropriately they can increase risk.
If I’m wearing a face mask and I contaminate it then I can contaminate my hands and I can contaminate surfaces - so they are not a magic shield. We also want to ensure that people continue to practise good hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette and physical distancing,” he added.
In an effort to clarify how to wear face coverings Dr De Gascun said they did not need to be worn in the open air or while driving a car.
“In essence these things need to be single-use. What we want people in the community to do is if they’re going to the shop or on public transport, when they get there, they put on the mask, sanitise their hands and do their shopping,” he said.
“When they come back out, whether to the open air or into their car they take off the mask, put it in a bag and sanitise their hands again. If it is a cloth one, you bring it home and you wash it at 60 degrees Celsius.”
Continued supply of medical-grade PPE was another reason behind NPHET’s recommendation to use non-medical face coverings.
The State ordered several consignments of medical-grade PPE as a result of “significant challenges” sourcing protective equipment during the peak of the pandemic as a result of high demand.
The most visible aspect of the State's efforts to secure PPE has been the "airbridge" strategy, which saw Aer Lingus flights chartered by the HSE to ferry hundreds of millions of euros worth of equipment back from where it was sourced in China. At its peak, this was operating 35 flights per week.
On Wednesday afternoon, the world’s largest aircraft is arriving at Shannon airport to deliver a large consignment of PPE from China.