Nursing homes across Waterford are deciding this afternoon if they'll fully shut their doors to visitors.
Nursing Homes Ireland has confirmed visiting restrictions are now in place in facilities nationwide over the coronavirus.
They say it's in the interest of resident and staff safety.
Havenwood Nursing Home in Ballygunner; Killure Bridge Nursing Home; Mooncoin Residential Care Centre; Rockshire Care Centre, Ferrybank; Maypark House Nursing Home and St Joseph's Home, Ferrybank have all decided to ban visitors with immediate effect.
Padraig Dolan is the Managing Director of Havenwood Nursing Home in Ballygunner.
"At this point in time, the advice we're getting from Nursing Homes Ireland is to do a full 100% restriction. Only emergency cases, if we have residents that are end of life some allowances will be made.
"The advice we're getting is 100% closure, no visitors allowed.
Director of Nursing, Regina Power, says their residents are particularly vulnerable:
"If you look at the statistics [older people] are definitely the group of individuals that seem to be passing away as a result of this virus.
"So, we really need to protect and ensure that they are safe and put whatever precautions we can in place based on the advice of the HSE and Nursing Homes Ireland.
They say they can't overstate how important handwashing is.
"Just make sure everybody is washing their hands and not to shake hands. If you're coughing, do it into your elbow, discard any used tissues straight away and wash your hands," said Regina Power.
Padraig Dolan added, "hot water, soap, longer than a minute, make sure you do the back of your hands the front of your hands, fingers, thumbs and wrists and that should hopefully kill the virus there and then."
