By Vivienne Clarke
Kildare man Ben Kavanagh, who is working as a teacher in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has told of the precautions people are taking to avoid contracting the coronavirus.
“It’s almost like a ghost town,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
Mr Kavanagh explained that with the Chinese New Year, he has been on a break from school since last Friday and has not gone outside his apartment for “two to three days.”
He said that he lives near a dual carriageway that is usually very busy, but it is very quiet now.
“You are allowed out, but there are so many rumours and people are worried, it’s better not to.”
The latest news he heard was that the virus is spread through the eyes and people are now wearing eye protection as well as masks.
“I have enough water for a few more days, but I will probably have to head out to the shops for food.”
He had heard that prices for some products, such as celery, have already tripled because of shortages.
Mr Kavanagh said that when he ventures out he will wear a surgical mask over his mouth and nose and swim goggles over his eyes.
The timing of the virus could not be worse, he said as people are travelling to visit their families for the new year celebrations.
While he is not very worried, he did admit that the issue “does play on the mind a bit.”
People are taking the situation very seriously.
“I have no idea what to expect,” he said.
Most of the people who had died from the virus to date were elderly, he said.
When asked if he would prefer to be at home in Kildare listening to election debates or dealing with a killer virus, he said it was ‘50/50”.
Meanwhile, a decontamination exercise was carried out at Dublin's Mater Hospital yesterday after a patient was brought in with a suspected case of the Chinese coronavirus.
The woman had returned from the Asian country and had a fever but was assessed and found not to have the virus.
An ambulance was decontaminated by staff as a precaution, according to the Irish Independent.
Cillian de Gascun, Director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory at UCD, says authorities have to fear the worst and hope for the best.
"There's still so much we don't know. We don't know host reservoir is, we don't know what the mode of transmission was to the initial people that were infected and we don't know even know how many people were originally exposed in the Wuhan live animal market," said Mr de Gascun.
"I think that is why the WHO and China have to fear the worst and hope for the best."
Additional reporting by Digital Desk
