Chief Executive of the Irish Rugby Football Union Phillip Browne (second left) arriving at the Department of Health on Baggot Street in Dublin for a meeting with Minister for Health Simon Harris earlier
This afternoon.
The IRFU has released the following statement:
The IRFU had a positive meeting with Minister Harris and his advisors today, where we requested a formal instruction as to the staging of the Ireland v Italy international matches over the weekend of 6/8 March.
At the outset we made it clear that the IRFU was supportive of the Governments’ need to protect public health in relation to the Coronavirus.
We were then advised, formally, that The National Public Health Emergency team has determined that the series of matches should not proceed, in the interests of Public Health.
The IRFU is happy to comply with this instruction.
We will immediately begin to work with our Six Nations partners to look at the possibility of rescheduling the matches and would hope to have an update on this in the coming days.
IRFU Statement On Ireland’s Six Nations Matches Against Italy (IRFU)
Earlier: Proportionate Measures
Meanwhile…
Im going to lock myself in the basement until they catch that Coronavirus father. #liveline pic.twitter.com/o2kfT573js
— Robbie Maguire 🇮🇪 🇾🇪 (@MaguireRobbie) February 26, 2020
The only sensible solution.
How many people fly in from at risk countries daily who are not going to watch a sport? Grandstanding.
It’s the mass gathering that was cancelled. We have yet to reach the level of risk where travel from affected countries needs to be halted.
To be fair we will never reach that stage. Once they determine the current quarantine restrictions have failed then we’ll move to a new phase where containment will have been deemed to have failed and then all they will be doing will be cancelling public events.
Yes, lots fly in, and come in by ferry. But they do not all gather together in a cauldron of 80,000 plus people, and meet in groups in the myriad of pubs and clubs around the city. This is not grandstanding, but a standard procedure in the control of major outbreaks of disease.
If this was, say, Ebola virus (as in the west Africa outbreak) and we had a football match with Sierra Leone. Would you prefer it went ahead, or was delayed until the situation was controlled? This is the same, only the names are changed.
No, they’re not at all comparable. Ebola has a fatality rate as high as 90% whereas Covid-19 is at a mere 2%.
But I agree with you completely on the fact that the game is rightly postponed.
So if 40,000 people at the Aviva picked up Covid-19 a mere 800 would die.
if 40,000 people at the Aviva picked up Ebola 36,000 would die.
Yes, but so far the Ebola outbreak in Italy appears to be contained. To the Congo.
How can we know the fatality rate if China is lying about the numbers, and North Korea is in denial?
Thats exactly what they are doing in Madrid and Lyon tonight.
If one infected person comes in by plane and he coughs his guts up for the duration of the flight, the air inside the aircraft is recycled throughout the flight, and chances are that by the end of the flight the virus has spread to all on it – and they disembark even just as carriers. The cruise ship is an example – air conditioning throughout the vessel carrying the virus from room to room.
So it’s far from a mass congregation of people that’s the problem. It’s travel that actually needs to be shut down. How do you think the virus reached Europe?
The virus is spread by droplets which are spread by coughing, sneezing and exhaling once the carrier becomes symptomatic. If everyone on the plane was infected they would not become contagious for about 14 days. At that stage they should be self isolating, as per the HSE instructions.
Listen, Repro. The HSE aren’t noted for their abilities. No point in the two of us arguing the toss on this. As you say, if the other 270+ on each aircraft become contagious after 14 days, then how many have they infected in the meantime? How many planes have arrived from Italy, France, China the Middle East even today?
And the solution is to hand the passengers a leaflet but no testing?
“if the other 270+ on each aircraft become contagious after 14 days, then how many have they infected in the meantime?”
Zero. Until they become contagious they can’t infect anyone else. That’s how contagion works.
It’s hard to believe that any reasonable person would have a problem with this cautious approach, I’m guessing that you’re the kind of person who would complain no matter what they did.
Ireland have dodged a bullet there.
Italy would have been looking to easily dominate a team that produced such a lacklustre and listless display at the weekend.
The clash of the minnows has been averted.
At this time of year it’s spinners you need to be using. You’ll catch nothing with flies until April/May.
LOL
The Irish team could pretend they have the symptoms so the Italians wouldn’t touch them. Still wouldn’t win….
close all private schools next
Philip Browne is second left, not second right
Thanks, yupyup, fixed now. Sorry.
Does the Late Late Show audience constitute a mass gathering (hopefully)…?
Hear, hear!.
no, but meetings at churches are
Hah. Just got that now.
Ireland’s Call.
anyone complaining about this needs to be removed from society
I find your unyielding, assertive views extremely arousing, dr
is that normal?
This decision is DANGEROUSLY racist and will lead to further restrictions imposed on borders, freedom of movement should take precedence of racist fear mongering .
Hah. Liveline. ‘We are buying tins of peas, bread, pasta, rice…..slabs of water….hand gels’
Couldn’t tune in, but I’m sure we had some good nuggets from Joe
‘Mmmmm. and and and and, tell me…..the tins of peas…..what is iiinnnn the tins?’
‘Slabs of water…..would they not melt on the way home?’
Could call it The Lifeline
Apparently there’s a run on fridge freezers too according to Liveline. Go figure.
There are more people in close proximity to each other on a crowded Dart or Luas in danger of cross contamination than those in the open air at Lansdowne Road, regardless of numbers. All the Italians (and Irish) who were booked to come over will still come over in planes, again in closed proximity.
This is a nonsense decision that merely fuels the sense of hysteria that is totally out of proportion with the threat
Still, if it means cancelling St Patrick’s Day, bring it on.
Day? The stuff is a week long now. Still, cancel the lot.
“Individuals living in that home may well be close-contact and contact may already have taken place within the home,” he said. In the case of a child, “a parent may already have been in close contact so restricting contact between a parent and a case at that point might have limited value in protecting the parent”.
In a bid to reduce pressure on hospitals, Holohan said that the government had decided that an individual who has been tested for coronavirus in an Irish hospital can be asked to “go home and self-isolate”.
That’s the professional advice from the head of the HSE. In other words, “ if you show symptoms don’t bother us – we have a few hundred bed blockers, and don’t have the means of treating this anyway – fek off and hide away from the world. Nobody cares”
https://www.thejournal.ie/chief-medical-officer-areas-affected-coronavirus-italy-six-nations-5022169-Feb2020/