Dublin imposes more restrictive curbs

Dublin, Sep 17 The Irish capital of Dublin has imposed a number of new restrictive measures aimed at the curbing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The new measures, which were announced by the Irish government on Tuesday and came into force on Wednesday, mainly focus on limiting the number of people gathering indoors and outdoors and restricting their movement, reports Xinhua news agency.

Under the new measures, no more than two households in Dublin should meet at any given time either indoors or outdoors and the maximum number of people allowed for such meetings is six.

The number of people who can attend sports matches and events in the city has been capped at 100 irrespective of the venue size.

Pubs and bars not serving food should remain closed beyond September 21.

The new measures also advise higher education institutions to consider enhanced protective measures and encourage local residents not to travel outside Dublin.

On Tuesday, the Irish government also unveiled a new medium-term plan to cope with the pandemic in the country for the next six to nine months.

Under the plan, the risk of the pandemic in the country will be rated at five levels with Level 1 being the lowest and having the least amount of restrictive measures in place, and Level 5 being the highest and having the most restrictions in place.

Currently both Dublin and the rest of Ireland are rated by the government at Level 2.

The restrictive measures for Level 2 include limiting the number of people attending a wedding or a funeral to 50 persons.

Dublin has witnessed a rapid surge in the number of Covid-19 cases in recent weeks.

Of all the 2,133 confirmed cases reported in Ireland in the last 10 days, 1,210 cases, or nearly 57 per cent, came from Dublin, according to the data from the Irish Department of Health.

The overall number of coronavirus cases in Ireland stood at 31,799 with 1,788 fatalities.

( With inputs from IANS )