Opening pubs over Christmas period could send us back to heightened restrictions warns Cork expert

“I just can’t see a good scenario to open the pubs to be perfectly honest,” he said.
Speaking to
, Ivan Perry, Professor of Public Health in the School of Epidemiology at University College Cork, said that while numbers have dropped slightly, level 5 restrictions were not as effective as he had hoped.His comments come just as the country is due to see an easing of restrictions.
“It’s clear that level 5 hasn’t been as effective as we would have hoped, and there’s a number of things going on there,” said Prof Perry.
He added the re-opening of restaurants and pubs could negatively impact progress on reducing cases.
“I just can’t see a good scenario to open the pubs to be perfectly honest,” he said.
“The restaurants could be potentially opened but with the measures that were there in the past and obviously just reinforcing with people over Christmas to stay within their family groups.
“Things are moving slower than we like so we just have to reinforce the message that we’re still in a fairly hazardous phase.”
