From top: Dr Gabriel Scally; front page of this morning’s Irish News; in this morning’s Irish Times
This morning.
In both the Irish Times and the Belfast-based Irish News newspaper.
Dr Gabriel Scally called for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to harmonise its approach to Covid-19 and said the “inconsistencies” between the two jurisdictions “are not trivial”.
Speaking to Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ this morning, Dr Scally repeated his call. He explained that a person who develops symptoms in Dundalk, Co Louth, would be asked to self-isolate for 14 days while a person in the same situation in Newry would be asked to self-isolate for seven days.
He added that the Northern Irish authorities “are fighting this fire blind”. He also said it would be “nonsense” to implement restrictions on people flying into Dublin and not have the same restrictions on people flying into Belfast.
Dr Scally said by not taking a unified approach the jurisdictions are “squandering” the advantage that the island could use against the virus.
He added:
“The advice from Whitehall, in my view and in the view of many other senior public health people, is seriously flawed, they are ignoring the very strong advice they’re getting from their experts and the World Health Organisation, they’re ignoring the European Central Communicable Disease Control and they’re going there own way, which they’re perfectly entitled to do.
“But there’s no reason in my view why the same advice should apply in the North, the health is a devolved power in the North, and they could make up their own minds and it should be a meeting of minds.”
Gabriel Scally: North and Republic must harmonise Covid-19 response (The Irish Times)
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