Dr. Siobhán Kennelly:

What is useful about this stage of learning about the pandemic is that there is very little evidence that visitors introduce Covid infection to nursing homes. We have a bit of confidence on this with regard to our understanding that much more of the risk is through staff transmission. This was certainly one of the things we learned from phase 1. The early lockdown with regard to visiting means we have not necessarily tested this but international experience is that visitors, once the appropriate precautions are applied, probably constitute less of a risk than was the concern at the start of the pandemic. My clinical colleagues who are engaged in this and I will use that as an important reference point.

With regard to end-of-life care, there are very specific criteria on end-of-life visiting and how it can be facilitated. Much of this is predicated on the nursing home itself. PPE, particularly if there is an outbreak in the nursing home, is an obvious requirement in protecting people who are visiting. What we have seen from the private and public nursing home sectors is that there has been a lot of learning in this respect. There has been a lot of flexibility applied as-----