Dublin, 10th of March 2020

Respected Institution,

I  am writing with a lucid mind but a heavy heart as I see my whole country in lockdown fighting an invisible disease. The lockdown has become necessary since yesterday because the health care  public system does not have enough ICU beds and ventilators. Ventilators are needed because COVID19 causes a viral primary pneumonia and people do stop breathing and need to be attached to machines to simulate breathing and keep them alive for 14 days until the body fights the virus. This happens to many people, and not all of them are old. A positive outcome is not granted.

ISS, Istituto Superiore Sanità has circulated data from the 9172 people infected up today and we know that in a population of 60 millions, since the 21st of February, date of the first COVID19 case in Northern Italy, 9172 people have been infected , 463 have died, 733 people are in intensive care (attached to a ventilator because they stopped breathing), and 724 people have recovered. This means that over 1 million people, the 151.7% of the population has been infected. I repeat it, since the 21st of February, only 19 days ago. We do not want this to happen in Ireland. The mistake that Italy made has been not to close the schools, the universities, the public places, restaurants, pubs, straight away and in those two weeks and a half, thousands of people became infected. 

We kindly ask you not to make the same mistake: please close the schools, the universities, the pubs, the restaurants, the public places, the museums and so on, NOW. Ireland will suffer the double economically AND emotionally if measures are not taken now to contain the spread of COVID19. The Chinese example of the whole area of Wuhan in lockdown showed that this is the ONLY POSSIBLE measure to contain and possibly stop COVID19 and after 3 weeks of total lockdown, Wuhan has seen up today only +26 new cases, and over a population of billions this is a great result. The only way to stop an announced tragedy is to shut down everything that is possible to close now (except food chain and healthcare). 

Thank you for reading

Kindest Regards