Covid-19 cluster: 57 confirmed cases in Cork linked to a café-restaurant

The public has again been asked to cut down on their number of social contacts after it was revealed that 57 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Cork have been linked to a cáfe-restaurant where a number of people from different households socialised.

In an interview with RTÉ, Acting Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health, Dr Ronan Glynn asked people to cut down on their socialisation in a bid to reduce the sizes of Covid-19 clusters. 

"What we’re concerned about is that increasingly, we’re seeing increases in cases of clusters in a whole range of different counties and so it becomes harder and harder to turn that tide," he said. 

"So tonight we’re really asking people over the coming days to once again pay heed to the advice – I know people are tired of it, but equally I know the vast majority of people are doing their best, are trying to listen to it and adhere to it and in particular what we’re trying to do is cut down contacts, cut down the size of clusters, so that if there are cases, if there are clusters they’re smaller in size.

"We’ve one cluster, for example, tonight in Cork from a café/restaurant where a number of people from different households socialised – at the moment that cluster is at 57 cases," he continued. 

"We have to cut down the size of these clusters. 

"We have to cut down socialisation if we’re going to get on top of this disease," Dr Glynn stressed.

NPHET has today recommended that no more than two households should meet at any given time. 

"People should only have a maximum of 6 visitors from one other household to their home. 

"People can continue to meet socially in other settings, but only with people from one other household," they stated.

The Department of Health this evening confirmed 442 new cases of Covid-19 as of midnight on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 36,597.

Of the new cases, 47 are in Cork.

There have been four more Covid-19 related deaths today, bringing the death toll in Ireland to 1,806.