Dr Tony Holohan: Need to eliminate Covid-19 'blame culture'
Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, speaking at a Department of Health press briefing. Picture: Collins
Ireland needs to move away from the 'blame culture' which has emerged regarding the spread of Covid-19, chief medical officer (CMO) Tony Holohan has warned.
Emphasising the ease the virus transmits between people, Dr Tony Holohan said "responsibility is important but we need to avoid blame".
Dr Holohan said the coronavirus is "about twice as easy to transmit this as flu” and that if a person does pick up an infection and bring it home, they are not to blame.
Speaking on Today FM, Dr Holohan said Ireland has a real chance of reducing its second wave of Covid-19 if individual responsibility is taken and public health guidelines are followed. The CMO said he is confident by early December the rate of transmission for coronavirus will be reduced "if each one of us takes our own responsibility".
He said the further down the rate of transmission is driven then the benefits of doing so can be enjoyed for longer. Reducing case numbers to 500 down from 1,000 a day may seem like an improvement, Dr Holohan said, but a reduction to 100 cases or lower a day would be a much better result.
Acknowledging what is being asked by the public to do so, Dr Holohan said the current level of restrictions “very onerous” but necessary.
“We don’t want to live with them any longer than we need to,” said Dr Holohan but, he added, this is necessary to maintain non-Covid helath services in the hospital system and to keep schools open.
Addressing calls for a herd immunity response, Dr Holohan said it would not be possible to protect vulnerable people from Covid-19 spread wide in the community.
Herd immunity policy advocates for cocooning older and vulnerable members of the population while allowing the virus to spread and infect the population in a controlled manner.
Dr Holohan said that Covid-19 poses "risks at every age" and that a decision to "let it rip" is not advisable as it can transmit to older or vulnerable people. The Chief Medical Officer also pointed to increasing evidence of longer-term effects of the coronavirus in some patients.
Addressing recent health system concerns as increased Covid-19 hospitalisations draw attention to ICU capacity, Dr Holohan said: "It is not a measure of success of controlling this disease that we have critical care beds to put people in”.
Dr Holohan said that the response has three layers and that the first layer, individual responsibility, and adherence to public health guidelines is the most important.
”The first layer of our defence is our individual behaviour,” said Dr Holohan.
The second layer, test and trace, Dr Holohan admitted is challenged at the moment but echoed last night's comments that this response alone will not reduce the spread of Covid-19. The third layer, hospital care, is not the most important metric to decide the success of a response to Covid-19, the Chief Medical Officer insisted.
Dr Holohan urged people with symptoms to isoalte and close contacts to present themselves for testing and to restrict their movements.
There is nothing inevitable about the spread of this disease, he said.
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