Major contradiction between Government and health officials over indoor dining

Dr Tony Holohan said Nphet called for the keeping pubs and restaurants closed until October unless a vaccine pass was introduced.

A major contradiction has emerged between the Government and its public health officials over the basis upon which the delayed indoor dining was introduced.

The Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan told opposition TDs this afternoon that the new advice on vaccinations, from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) was not included in the National Public Health Emergency Team's (Nphet) modelling on the Delta variant.

The worst-case scenario forecast that 2,170 people would die before September.

However, at Cabinet on Tuesday, ministers were clearly told that the modelling did take account of the new vaccine schedule as outlined by Niac.

Cabinet sources have confirmed to the Irish Examiner that Taoiseach Micheàl Martin was adamant that the new vaccine advice, which allows 18-49-year-olds get the AstraZenaca vaccine, was factored into Nphet's grim and sobering forecasts.

This discrepancy has drawn further criticism on the Government's decision to delay indoor dining, which was due to kick in on Monday, July 5.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health has been notified of a further 452 cases of Covid-19.

The number of people in hospital is 44, with 14 of them being treated in intensive care.

The department said that daily case numbers may change due to future data review, validation and update.

It comes after the CMO told TDs a fourth wave of Covid-19 is coming and will last a long time, which was the reason Nphet sought to delay the re-opening of indoor dining.

Dr Tony Holohan said Nphet called for keeping pubs and restaurants closed until October unless a vaccine pass was introduced.

Sources speaking to the Irish Examiner said Dr Holohan stressed that a new wave is on its way and it will “not be over in a month”.

Unless a pass is introduced, Dr Holohan warned that public health advice would be that pubs would have to remain closed for several months.

Amid a storm of controversy, Dr Holohan was defending his body’s warnings to Government which led to Tuesday’s decision which delayed the re-opening of indoor dining until July 19 at the earliest.

According to sources, Dr Holohan said the more transmissible Delta variant now accounted for 50% of all cases and that this had doubled over the past seven days.

He said while the overall number of cases hasn’t changed, there is some evidence it is beginning to track upwards.

Dr Holohan referenced the current experience in Scotland which is very pessimistic.

Speaking in the Dáil earlier the Taoiseach said: "I spoke yesterday with Nicola Sturgeon MSP, First Minister of Scotland, and she used a very telling phrase.

She said Delta will rip through an unvaccinated population.

"All their eggs are in the vaccination basket. They are 60% fully vaccinated.

"There are some hopeful signs there may be a breaking of the link between case numbers and hospitalisations but that is not certain yet and will take more monitoring."

Dr Holohan gave TDs a briefing on the current disease scenario, noting there have been just nine deaths from the virus in June with cases, hospitalisations and ICUs trending down since January.

He told TDs that tracking of Delta is always two weeks behind due to the fact it is done on genomic sequencing and this always takes time.

Appraising TDs of the four scenarios that Nphet had outlined, Dr Holohan said it would rest on just how transmissible the Delta variant is. The ECDC projection is 27%-28% transmissibility, but the UK authorities believe that it could be higher.

On the logic of unvaccinated staff serving people, Dr Holohan said the risk would be low as they would be serving vaccinated customers. He said the technology that would be used for a vaccine pass would be similar to that used for travel.