Dr Gabriel Scally: No sign of flu arriving in Ireland this winter

Covid-19 measures in the far east have had a beneficial effect which had resulted in a very mild flu season.

Public health expert Dr Gabriel Scally has said that there was no sign of influenza arriving in Ireland “to any extent” this winter because of precautionary Covid-19 measures taken elsewhere in the world.

Covid-19 measures in the far east have had a beneficial effect which had resulted in a very mild flu season he told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.

Flu levels vary from year to year, he said and “it was not something that we should be making a big thing of”. 

However, he encouraged anyone at risk or vulnerable to get the vaccine.

Dr Scally also warned that Christmas was going to pose “huge difficulties” this year because of restrictions. The problem was that people would want to travel home while the virus was still in circulation.

The latest restrictions (Level 5) were working to bring down the number of cases, but it was going to be very difficult to get people to observe social distancing. 

“People need to stick to social distancing,” he advised. Dr Scally also called for more attention to be paid to the issue of ventilation at home and in the workplace.

Dr Scally said that travel into Ireland from Denmark should be completely restricted until the current outbreak connected to mink was under control. 

This was a really important issue as the virus had changed “along the way” via transmission from human to animal and back to human again. He was concerned that this could have an impact on vaccines being developed.

We can’t really play catch up with this virus.

Dr Scally also called for a better system of managed isolation, the current system (voluntary isolation) was not working very well, he said.

There was no magic bullet when it came to dealing with Covid-19, he said. 

The test and tracing system in the UK, particularly in England was a shambles. It had a very poor success rate and was “not doing the job”. 

Dr Scally called for an integrated system across the island of Ireland. The situation, both north and south, would have been better if both systems had “worked in train”. 

The issue of movement across the border was always going to be a problem, he said. The lack of data and the lack of transparency with the figures in Northern Ireland was also a problem.