Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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1450. To ask the Minister for Health the extent to which the HSE remains capable of dealing with further surges in Covid-19; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33795/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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1451. To ask the Minister for Health if particular lessons have been learned from the experience to date in dealing with Covid-19; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33796/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As you will be aware, the country has moved to level 5 of the Government’s medium-term strategy for dealing with COVID-19: Resilience and Recovery 2020-2021: Plan for Living with COVID-19.

This Plan sets out a Framework of 5 Levels which outline the broad measures which will apply depending on the level of the virus at any given time. The Plan is designed to help everyone – individuals, families, organisations and sectors – to better understand, anticipate and prepare for the measures that might be introduced to contain transmission of the virus.

Measures such as those introduced at level 5 are aimed at limiting the spread and damage of COVID-19, and are necessary to protect what we know are our key priorities of supporting and maintaining health and social care services, keeping education and childcare services open and protecting the most vulnerable members of our communities. The Government is committed to ensuring a balanced and proportionate response to COVID-19 in finding ways to implement public health measures in response to the pandemic in a way that is fair, reasonable and proportionate.

Since the beginning of this crisis, the Government has developed a greater understanding the transmission of COVID-19, gained insight into the people that it poses the greatest risk to, developed testing and tracing protocols, and become part of a worldwide effort to generate vaccines and drug therapies to counter the virus.

We know that COVID-19 spreads when individuals and groups come into close contact with one another, enabling the virus to move from one person to another. We also know that COVID-19 is infectious in a person with no symptoms, or for the period of time before they develop symptoms.

Therefore the most important way to stop the spread of Covid-19 is for everyone to adhere to the current public health measures, such as good hand hygiene, physical distancing, cough and sneeze etiquette, wearing a face covering, avoiding crowded situations, and not attending work when symptoms appear.

Throughout the course of the pandemic, testing and contact tracing has been and continues to be a key component of the Government’s response. The development of a comprehensive, reliable and responsive testing and tracing operation has been central to our public health strategy for containing and slowing the spread of COVID-19 since the outset.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is another key part of the response, and the health service responded quickly to a worldwide shortage and developed guaranteed supply lines to ensure adequate PPE was available throughout 2020, along with ensuring the stock levels were increased for the future.

As new scientific evidence becomes available, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre and the HSE continues to publish and update guidance documents for managing potential cases of COVID-19 in both healthcare and non-healthcare settings, which are available at the following link:

As I am sure you can appreciate, the evidence relating to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the decisions necessary to protect everybody living in Ireland from its effects is constantly evolving. The public health advice relating to Covid-19 is kept under continuing review by the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), by the Department of Health and by the Government. The measures in place and the public health advice have been adapted to the changing circumstances and this will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.