'We have already passed what is the worst' of Covid-19 this year, says deputy CMO

Dr Ronan Glynn. File picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

Ireland has passed the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic this year, according to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer.

Dr Ronan Glynn said he is hopeful people won't have to go through what happened in January, again.

Last night, Nphet reported six further deaths and 829 new cases of the virus.

Dr Glynn has said there are many reasons to be optimistic.

“We have already passed what is the worst of this disease, this year. And that we will not have to back through what we went through in January again.

“I think there are many reasons to have confidence that that’s the case.

“First and foremost is the performance of the population over the past number of weeks and their willingness to keep going with these measures.

“On top of that, we have vaccination being rolled out.” 

However, Dr Glynn did cast doubt on the Government’s plan to reopen the construction sector on March 5.

He stressed the reopening of society remains ”uncertain” for March, saying case numbers need to improve before people start thinking about restarting construction and other industries.

He said the focus should be firmly on core priorities — reopening schools and restarting non-Covid health services.

Dr Glynn added that “we don’t envisage adopting mandatory vaccination as part of this programme”.

He said that there will be people who have concerns and that “we need to address those concerns and provide people with the necessary information to allow them to make an informed decision. And hopefully, make a decision to get vaccinated.”

Some 230,776 doses of coronavirus vaccine have been administered in Ireland, including 151,212 first doses and 79,554 second doses.