Stephen Donnelly: Don’t go to nightclubs “three times a week”

The Health Minister has urged people to reduce their "discretionary social contacts".

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has called on members of the public not to go to nightclubs "three times a week". The Minister said on Wednesday (10 November) that the current Covid-19 situation in Ireland right now is "quite finely balanced", adding: "There are things working for us and there are things working against us". In terms of the positives, Donnelly said the government is rolling out vaccines and booster vaccines to combat Covid-19, as well as more PCR tests and antigen tests to help detect the virus. However, he added that the number of Covid-19 cases is still continuing to rise. "In all age groups under 75, they're rising fast and in the age groups from about 35 down, particularly for the 19-24-year-olds, the lines on the graph are almost vertical - so cases are rising really really quickly," he said. Because of this, Donnelly said an "important" message is for everyone to "reduce their discretionary social contacts just for a while". Asked if this meant people should stop going to nightclubs, the Minister replied: "Well, not three times a week," before adding: "If you enjoy going to nightclubs three times a week, don't do anything else." "We all know, right, it's different for each person. There are people who might want to go to nightclubs... several times a week, there are other people who might want to go to the pub, there's other people who might like to spend a lot of time in friends' houses," Donnelly said. "Really it's about, just for each of us... just look at the amount of people you're meeting - particularly indoors - and just pull it back a bit. "The modelling from Professor [Philip] Nolan - what it shows is that it's a relatively small increase in socialisation [that] really has fuelled this. "So we just need to pull that back that little bit". Main image via Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie