News

An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced new measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 or the Corona Virus on the evening of 27 March.

Included in the measures is a concept known as cocooning; this means that those who are over 70 years or those extremely medically vulnerable should not leave their homes, and within their homes should minimise all non-essential contact with other members of their household. This is to protect those who are at very high risk of severe illness from COVID-19 from coming into contact with the virus.  

• Tesco Ireland to donate €150,000 with three donations of €50,000 to ALONE, Age Action and Family Carers Ireland
• Separately, a €120,000 donation to be made available to over 450 community-based local causes via store-based Community Fund

Thursday 26th March 2020: Tesco Ireland has today announced that it will make a series of special donations to local and national organisations through its ongoing Community Fund to help the country’s most vulnerable people during the Covid-19 pandemic.

As part of the Community Fund, three special donations of €50,000 each will be made to ALONE, Age Action and Family Carers Ireland to support their efforts in helping the elderly, family carers and those most vulnerable members of our communities across the country.

Age Action and Active Retirement Ireland today called on the public to act in the interests of people who are vulnerable to the impacts of COVID-19 – older people and people with underlying health conditions.

Alarmed by reports on social and mainstream media of people disregarding the advice of the Chief Medical Officer and the Government to practice social distancing in order to limit the spread of COVID-19, Age Action and Active Retirement Ireland who have a combined membership of approximately 35,000 people, criticised the actions of customers and some licenced premises operators.

As an organisation working with and for older people, we are mindful that information about COVID-19, from official sources, suggests that older people, particularly people with underlying health conditions, are more vulnerable to the impacts of the virus. We want to ensure that we support older people during this time by;

1.           Ensuring that older people have accurate and timely information about the virus

2.           Playing our part to mitigate the risk of passing the virus to others, particularly older people and other vulnerable members of the population.

Click the image below for the latest HSE Video about COVID-19 (10/03/2020)

Age Action has advised staff and volunteers about the guidelines issued by the HSE and distributed the yellow HSE produced COVID-19 poster through all our sites (click image below for full size version).

We are appealing to people who are online to share the official HSE information with their older family members, friends and clients to make sure that they are informed.

Everyone has a responsibility to follow the official advice from the HSE to try to minimise exposure and potentially passing it on to others.

We need to care for ourselves so we can care for others.