'Hard to see' Covid-19 cases dropping below 500 a day, Tánaiste says

Leo Varadkar said the B117 variant would have entered Ireland regardless of travel restrictions. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

It is "hard to see" Ireland bringing Covid-19 cases below 500 or 600 a day, the Tánaiste has said.

During Leaders' Questions, Leo Varadkar said  it was "hard to see" Covid-19 cases dropping to the low levels seen last year. In fact, Mr Varadkar said, it was hard to see cases dipping below 500 cases a day.

Mr Varadkar told Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall that getting to low figures would not be possible due to the more virulent B117 variant, which he said would have come to Ireland regardless of travel bans from the UK.

"We are approaching 4,700 deaths in this State of people who died with Covid. We have reached the point where as many people have died from Covid-19 this year as did in all of last year. That is an extraordinary statistic, when one thinks about it.

"These are not just statistics but people with grieving families. That statistic demonstrates how serious the B117 variant is and how different it is to the Wuhan strain or the wild strain that we dealt with last year. 

'More transmissible and deadly'

"It perhaps demonstrates that getting down to low figures like 10, 50 or even 100 per day is not a prospect in the way it was last year because the virus has mutated and is more transmissible and deadly than the original wild strain. 

Despite the enormous efforts of the Irish people doing all the right things, we have got stuck around 500 or 600 cases per day and it is hard to see how we will get much lower than that."

Ms Shortall said Mr Varadkar's answer had been "disingenuous" and had not answered her questions on vaccinations or public health consultant positions.

During Leaders' Questions, @RoisinShortall asks Tánaiste:
👉what steps Govt will take to drive down virus?
👉why under-resourcing of public health doctors not addressed?
👉why no retrospective tracing?
👉why are international travellers not asked if journeys are essential? pic.twitter.com/vioNa9WpoH

— Social Democrats (@SocDems) March 25, 2021

"I asked him specific questions about things the Government had promised to do to play its part in the response to Covid. The questions were on things we have been through umpteen times and he did not answer a single one of them. 

"How can he expect the public to stay with him and to stay the course when the Government is not doing what it said it would do? I listed all of those things.

The Tánaiste referred to the new variants. They are the big threat and they change everything. However, they have been allowed into this country by the failure of the Government to address the issue of travel."

Mr Varadkar said the B117 variant would have entered Ireland regardless of travel restrictions.

"It would, unfortunately, have come into the country inevitably. It does not just come through ports and airports. It also comes in and came in through Northern Ireland, as did the Spanish strain, which contributed to the second wave."