Thread by @gavreilly

Anyway welcome back to our continuing coverage of 2020+1.

Here we go. Taoiseach says lockdown is working but hospitals remain under too much pressure, need to bring numbers down further.

The emergence of new variants represents a dangerous and new development, to which we cannot give any space

Taoiseach: "The message for the next six weeks is very simple. Stay at home. Do not travel, Do not make any journeys outside of your 5km unless you absolutely have to."

Taoiseach: Non-esssential travel outside of 5km is a clear breach of the Level 5 restrictions. Additional Gardai being sent to sea and airports, those in breach will be fined.

ℹ All visa-free travel from Brazil and South Africa is suspended until March 5; anyone arriving from those areas will be forced to quarantine

Taoiseach: Further legislation is needed to allow for legally enforceable self-isolation on Irish citizens passengers coming from the EU; work on this is to begin immediately

Tánaiste says it remains the Government's plan to pursue a "phased reopening of schools" from February and March

Tánaiste underlines that anyone entering the State from overseas will be subject to mandatory quarantine, of one form or another - sometimes at hotels, more usually at home - and that this will (soon) be legally enforceable for the first time

Eamon Ryan says the quarantine restrictions are also intended to apply to those who arrive into the State via Northern Ireland, and that the Govt will work on data-sharing arrangements with Stormont

Stephen Donnelly, stressing the need for continued restrictions, says it will take some time for numbers in ICU to decline. Estimates now that two-thirds of all cases in Ireland now are of UK variant, but that case numbers continued to all in spite of this faster-spreading strain

"We are not happy with the news from AstraZeneca," says Donnelly of delayed arrivals. "The numbers have not been finalised."

📈 Taoiseach says NPHET's latest models show that in a best-case scenario at the end of February, there could still be 800-1300 #covid19ireland cases in hospitals, and 100 in intensive care

Taoiseach tells me therefore there "are no guarantees" that Level 5 can end in March… but on a more hopeful note, says the pace of vaccinations means "we give ourselves more choices… more room for manouevre"

https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1354105939427786752

💬 Taoiseach: "The sense is, we've never been advised to go into #ZeroCovid. I don't think it's possible or sustainable… it was put to us last evening [by NPHET], it's a promise you could never fulfil… one you open again there is a prospect of reseeding of the virus."

Leo Varadkar says the #ZeroCovid question is "a fair one"… "This virus keeps surprising us; this virus keeps tearing up all our plans." But even if it were possible on a two-island basis, the virus will always be present somewhere in the world so it's always possible to return

…So then, what next? Do we eventually reopen and hope we're forced into Lockdown 4?

Taoiseach: "The vaccination issue will be key to determining what will happen with that quarter." Reopening will be "cautious and conservative" because a lapse can rebuild pressure very quickly

Quite a few questions here re return to schools - basically there's no specific dates yet. Only formal thing is that pupils with SEN remain first priority but everything's up to negotiation

Stephen Donnelly denies that speeding up vaccinations in nursing homes meant diverting vaccines away from hospital workers - he says the doses came from the 'buffer', not from frontliners' supplies

Leo Varadkar says it's currently "disproportionate" that someone who runs 7km from their home gets the same €100 fine as someone "going on a ski holiday" - no formal decision today but looking like €500 fine on the way for egregious breaches of travel limit

On hospitality, Varadkar: "Come the second quarter of the year, come April, May, with the better weather, case numbers down low, a vaccine provided to a critical mass of the population, we're going to be in a different place… but it's impossible to put a date on reopening"

Varadkar: "Maybe it'll be the case that international travel is not possible this summer, and not possible this Christmas, but I certainly don't want to close off that possibility today. But maybe we'll have to." Says must wait to see if full vaccination confers herd immunity

No prospect of revisiting restrictions before March 5, Taoiseach says

Gardaí will be able to police the quarantine-at-home clause, Taoiseach says; though there are challenges for enforcing that, his sense is that once something is law it is mostly observed

Varadkar: "If you're serious about elimination and you're serious about Covid being zero, surely it would go on for a couple of years, and maybe indefinitely, because it's now all around the world… if you can seal your country off entirely, when do you ever unseal?"

Varadkar: One thing that frustrates Govt and NPHET about Zero Covid proposition is that "if we just did this for three months, we'd be able to live like New Zealand - that's a false promise. It really is."

Taoiseach says NPHET has never advised to pursue Zero Covid.

Donnelly adds: if you pursued Zero Covid and sealed borders until universal vaccination, you couldn't know for sure that another variant wouldn't arrive for which the vaccines are ineffective

Point of clarity: restrictions don't currently apply to those who live outside the State; AG is to go away and examine legal options before checks can be mounted 5km of border to ensuring adherence for those coming in from NI and elsewhere