Christmas in Ireland should be cancelled until January, health expert says

The one positive event of the year - postponed.

When I was a kid I remember hearing a story called The Man Who Cancelled Christmas - and now it seems in 2020 we might see a live action version. With this year being such a stressful time, almost everyone has been looking forward to celebrating the festive holidays. Some experts, however, think we should hold off until 2021. Associate Professor at Trinity College, Tomás Ryan, says that celebrating Christmas this year could be detrimental to our progress in lowering our Covid cases. In fact, Ryan thinks that we should cancel all Christmas celebrations this year and instead wait until next year. According to 98FM Ryan said: "One way of looking at this would be to delay Christmas until the end of January and have a real Christmas and a real party then." Ryan went on to say that we should wait until our Covid numbers are in single digits before we attempt to end lockdown or celebrate Christmas in Ireland. With so many people around the country already missing family, the cancellation of Christmas and extension of Phase 5 would be a crushing blow. The government have, however, stated that they are hopeful restrictions could be lifted at the end of the six week lockdown period. As it stands Phase 5 will continue until the first week of December, but there is no confirmation at the moment if it will go beyond that.