Ireland will extend its third confinement until April 5 to fight against the coronavirus, but will partially reopen its schools from March 1, Prime Minister Micheal Martin announced Tuesday (February 23).
Read also: Covid-19: facing a "black January", Ireland locks the country a little more
The country of five million inhabitants, which until December had succeeded in relatively limiting the spread of the virus, has seen the epidemic explode, in particular because of the more contagious variant which appeared in Great Britain.
This represents "
up to 90% of new contaminations
" in Ireland, underlined the head of the centrist government in a televised address.
This variant, which has spread to "
at least 75 countries
", has changed the "
dynamics significantly
" and "
we must be very careful
", he insisted.
Since the end of December and for the third time since the start of the pandemic, the Irish have been called upon to stay at home, non-essential shops, pubs and restaurants have been closed since the end of December, and schools have not reopened their doors in January.
The partial reopening of schools will initially allow 320,000 students from March 1 to return to class.
So far, 350,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered in Ireland, but the Prime Minister has promised that more than 80% of eligible adults will have received at least one dose by the beginning of July.
The country, which deplores according to the latest figures 4,181 deaths from Covid-19 had faced the first two waves of the pandemic with a relatively low number of cases and deaths.
But after Christmas restrictions were eased, the country saw an explosion in the number of cases, so much so that by the first week of January it had the highest infection rate in the world, according to data compiled by Oxford University.
About 45% of the total number of deaths from the virus have occurred since the start of the year.