Statement from Dr Breda Smyth HSE Director of Public Health in the West

“We must stay home to protect ourselves and our loved ones”

Dr Breda Smyth, Director of Public Health in the West has urged the people of Galway, Mayo and Roscommon to stay home unless absolutely necessary and double down in their efforts to follow the HSE’s public health advice to help reduce the rapid spread of COVID-19 across our community.

“Over the last number of weeks we are seeing a rapid increase of cases of confirmed COVID-19 across Galway, Mayo and Roscommon as we have across the country. This rapid rise in infections is having a very serious impact on the number of people hospitalised and the number of patients requiring critical care in our ICUs. We must do all we can to protect our hospital services so they are available to provide critical and emergency care to our communities when they need it. We have seen a doubling of the number of patients in hospital since last week and this is extremely concerning for us.

“Community transmission is extremely high. We must act as if every person we meet is an infection risk. Everything we touch outside our home is an infection risk. We must stay home as much as possible. We all need to think about the impact that being diagnosed with COVID-19 would have on those close to us. We have started the vaccination roll-out in the hospital system this week and the roll-out in our long-stay facilities will begin over this week and the next. It is critical that we continue to do all we can to protect our loved ones while the vaccine is rolled out.”