‘Halving social distancing’: Ireland to relax rules only if rate of infections comes down

Irish PM Leo Varadkar raised the prospect on Friday of halving social distancing rules from two meters to one if the rate of coronavirus infections comes down further. The move would be a potential boost to still-shuttered restaurants and pubs.

The hospitality sector has called for the guidelines to be eased in line with a number of other European countries, as Ireland has had one of the longest shutdowns in Europe.

“Before we can relax that rule and maybe reduce it to one (meter), which I know a lot of people would like, we just need to see the virus come down a bit more. We’re not at that point yet but I think there’s a good chance we get there,” Varadkar told radio station FM104.

The daily number of new Covid-19 cases has stayed below 100 for 13 of the last 14 days and the ‘reproduction rate’ narrowed further to between 0.4 and 0.5 this week, Reuters said. The country’s top epidemiologist described the trend as “astonishingly stable.”