Ireland to shut restaurants, bars from Dec. 24 as COVID-19 surges
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Ireland will shut restaurants, pubs serving food and some shops from Christmas Eve, less than a month after they emerged from the previous lockdown after health officials warned the country had quickly spiralled into a third wave of COVID-19 infections.
Prime Minister Micheal Martin said there was no evidence that a new, virulent variant of the virus that has isolated neighbouring Britain had reached Ireland, but the safest way forward was to assume it had.
Ireland has one of the lowest incidence rates of COVID-19 in Europe after moving early in October to temporarily shut shops, bars and restaurants. Unlike much of Europe, they have largely been open again during the busy December trading period.
However daily cases were now rising at 10%, Martin said, prompting the government to scrap provisional plans to keep hospitality open until closer to the New Year and move to a modified version of its highest level of restrictions until Jan. 12.
“Unfortunately in the last week we have seen extraordinary growth in the virus. This is the same pattern as we have seen in the United Kingdom and across Europe,” Martin told a news conference.
