'Too early' to say if new mutated coronavirus strain is in Ireland as 264 new cases confirmed

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said Nphet will meet on Thursday as numbers are rising. File picture: Dan Linehan

It is “too early” to know if the new strain of the coronavirus, confirmed in Britain, has emerged in Ireland, Dr Ronan Glynn has said.

The Deputy Chief Medical Officer said that Irish authorities only received formal notification of the new strain on Monday, at the same time the UK government publicly announced the news of the new strain of the virus.

“We had formal notification of that variant through our official early warning system with European colleagues and the UK, and there's very little information available to us at the moment,” Dr Glynn said.

“And there is further epidemiological and virological investigation going on by colleagues in the UK.

"Obviously, we will be interested in the potential effects of this variant in terms of transmission, but it's really too early at this stage to say whether or not it has any such effects.

"We just really need to wait for more information to come out. It's too early at this stage to say whether the variant has been seen in this country,” he added.

Speaking as two further deaths related to Covid-19 and 264 new cases were confirmed here, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said Nphet will meet on Thursday as numbers are rising, but gave no indication that he is likely to recommend against changing the plan to relax travel restrictions from Friday.

“We have a standard agenda we are looking at whether measures are working. We always do that. A straight-forward agenda. If we have concerns arising we will address those concerns in the usual way,” Dr Holohan said.

Dr Holohan confirmed that Ireland still has the lowest seven-day incidence in Europe and also the lowest 14-day incidence rate of anywhere in Europe.

Speaking at the briefing, Lorraine Nolan, chief executive of the health products regulatory authority, the Irish regulator on some of the vaccines said that despite the speedy road to a vaccine, there has been or there will be no reduction in safety standards.

“It is important to stress that this will not compromise the detailed and thorough nature of scientific scrutiny. There will be no lowering of the bar on this.

"All vaccine applications will be reviewed, just as carefully and as rigorously as for any other medicine.

"We will be led by the evidence, and by the science, and that is the backbone of the regulatory system,” she said.