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THE PERUVIAN GOVERNMENT has given Ireland the green light to fly over 130 Irish citizens out of Peru in the next few days.
Irish citizens who were visiting the country became stranded in Peru after it announced it would shut all air, land and sea borders with very little notice almost two weeks ago, leaving tourists with virtually no time to fly out.
The lockdown in Peru is very strict; a nighttime curfew is in place.
Following a call between Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and the Peruvian Foreign Minister Néstor Bardales, diplomatic clearance has now been given for a repatriation flight in the next few days.
The Department of Foreign Affairs is liaising with British Airways and Aer Lingus to organise this, and is still making arrangements for Irish citizens scattered around Peru to get to Lima, where the flight will depart from.
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs said that its Embassy in Santiago, Chile, is in contact with Irish citizens in Peru and keeping them informed.
There are around 2,000 Irish citizens stranded in 86 countries across the world, as countries close their borders and airlines ground their flights in what the Irish government called “the biggest shutdown in global aviation since the dawn of commercial flight”.
We have never seen anything like it before… What we have seen in recent days is not only countries, but entire regions, close off airspace and ground airlines at short notice.
A flight was arranged by the Irish government to fly 170 stranded Irish citizens home from Perth, Australia yesterday.
There are hundreds of other Irish citizens stranded in Australia and New Zealand, many of them young people who have lost their jobs because of the shutdown imposed in Australia on Monday.
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Good then get them folks into isolation for two weeks for everyone’s sake.
@Jake Kelly: Probably a good idea in general, but Peru’s infection rate is about 20x lower than ours and their death rate is 6x lower than ours, so they aren’t particularly high risk. They’ve adopted pretty extreme measures there considering their low number of cases.
@Jake Kelly: I’m sure they will self isolate or practice social distancing like the rest of us..
I’m sure if they get symptoms they will call a GP and await a test….
@Jake Kelly: I reckon they will be flown with British airways and quarantined in the UK same as the mercy flights from China. Irish were also quarantined on the Wirral.
@Jake Kelly: get everyone in to isolation for 2 weeks for everyone’s sake. Your neighbour/s could have it as easy as they could
@Chris Mansfield: this is why they have low figures!!
I hope they will all go into quarantine for two weeks to prevent the spread of this virus
@John O Donoghue: Peru – 18 cases per million of population, Ireland- 368 cases per million. They definitely need to self isolate when they return…to protect themselves if nothing else!!!
@John O Donoghue: probably flown into UK and quarantined there same as the mercy flights from China
@John O Donoghue: they have a bigger chance of catching it in Irelsnd infairness.
Peru a population of 32 million and 580 cases… ireland 6 million nearly 2,000 cases.
@Paul O’Sullivan: I reckon countries are putting out Dodgy numbers to protect their economies. Government bonds are shooting up. Chillies bonds wouldn’t be high on investors priorities especially with the US looking for 2.2 trillion. Just look at the numbers from Russia and Iran.
@Jason Healy: You can also look at the death rates, which aren’t as easy to fake and Peru stacks up well on that. They took very severe measures there and went into Lockdown when they only had 70 cases in a country of 30 million people. Also, in general, the virus reached South America late compared to most parts of the world.
@Jason Healy: I reckon you could also quadruple the figures coming out of the USA and looking at the figures from the UK definitely something not right there…
I think every country is way off some are acting faster than contain the spread but j do not think its about containment anymore it’s a out staying safe….
Ireland is ideal to manage this an island but it will be very hard for poorer nations with vast populations and poverty.
Stay safe.
@Jason Healy: The numbers each country reports are the number of people who have tested positive. No one is claiming that is the total number infected.
At this moment it is a certainty that the number of infected are higher that the number of confirmed cases. How much higher is a guess.
@Chris Mansfield: how do we know it reached there later then everywhere else? Which one of the tinpot dictators are you going to believe, Bolsinaro? When you have a health service run by a government, it’s the government who dictates what is released.
@Feardorcha Ó Maolomhnaigh: I was listening to a show in the UK last Tuesday week and a virologist reckoned then there was more than 50k case’s in the UK alone. When you look at Spain and Italy it’s hard to argue with that figure.
@Ash Jordi: were you in Peru counting all the cases that amazing how did go into lockdown overnight with so little cases or is Leo a fool for not locking this country down
Don’t worry about the people abroad. They are safer there. There may be 10,000 infected people walking around and spreading it here.
By the 1st May we will be scared enough to start taking this seriously.
Like in Germany – stay home and max 50m from home for fresh air.
There are teenage groups hanging around who infect each other and will bring illness and death their their families.
@John Lynch: Exactly. For the most part. I live overseas but don’t feel too safe. Used to live in Germany. They got a lot of cases but their attitude to personal distancing is very good. They take it seriously. They are also “flattening “this curve we hear so much about.
Swear the silhouette in that photo is Sauron.
Sound Peru!
Great news.
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