Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar raised the prospect on Friday of halving social distancing rules from two metres to one if the rate of coronavirus infections comes down further in a potential boost to still shuttered restaurants and pubs.
Facing one of the longest shutdowns in Europe, Ireland’s hospitality sector has called for the guidelines to be eased in line with a number of other European countries, saying it could be the difference between some operators reopening or not.
The daily number of new COVID-19 cases has stayed below 100 for 13 of the last 14 days and the so-called “reproduction rate” narrowed further to 0.4 to 0.5 this week, a trend the country’s top epidemiologist described as “astonishingly stable.” Restaurants in Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Germany have reopened with looser 1 to 1.5 metre guidelines. Operators in the Czech Republic, Iceland and Switzerland that have had to stick to 2 metres have had the benefit of being open since May to try to salvage some of the busy summer season.
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