Health officials stated that Coronavirus will reach its peak in mid April, if people continue with the social distancing guidelines and staying at home.
Many people will attempt to visit holiday homes in other parts of the country despite the recommendations put in place by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health, Simon Harris.
The current estimate states that the Covid-19 cases in Ireland will reach an all time high between April 10th and April 16th and that after this date, the number of new infections should start to decrease.
In 1918, the influenza pandemic came in three waves and if these restrictions are lifted early, the same could happen with coronavirus. This pandemic was also known as the Spanish Flu. More people died during this pandemic than the total number of military and civilian deaths during World War One.
If cases do not increase after the Easter Holiday weekend and they peak mid April, then Ireland could be returning to normal by June.
One issue with Coronavirus is that some people are asymptomatic which means they may have the virus and not know and if a number of these people still remain asymptomatic and the restrictions lifted, cases will rapidly increase again.
China is four months into their pandemic and have now not had any new deaths since Friday the 2nd of April and they have only begun to partially lift restrictions. China halted the spread of the virus from aggressive measures such as a total lockdown where people were not even allowed to leave the house for food shopping, according to people who have lived through the pandemic.
People were handed their food shopping depending on how many were in their household and people were not allowed to leave the house under any circumstances. If Ireland faces a second wave of Coronavirus, lessons might have to be learned from the methods of the Chinese.
The R-Naught of a disease means how contagious it is. Ebola and Hepatitis C has an R-Naught of two meaning one infected person will spread it to two other people. Measles has an R-Naught of 18 and scientists have established the R-Naught of the Coronavirus to be 1.5 according to an article from ‘Towards Data Science’. Health officials have stated that Ireland needs to decrease this number to 1 in order to completely stop the virus in its tracks.
Coronavirus is more contagious than the flu yet Covid-19 has a higher mortality rate which will result in many more deaths, particularly those that are elderly and immunocompromised.