Covid-19 tests in Ireland being examined to establish if Omicron is here

Dr Allison Glass of the Lancet Laboratory in Johannesburg expressed disappointment that travel restrictions had been imposed on South Africa when the reality was that such information was important to plan for a possible surge, she said. File Picture: PA

Eleven positive tests for Covid-19 are being further examined to see if they are the new coronavirus variant, Omicron, the Government has said.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said there are “more than 10” possible cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in Ireland. He said a trawl of samples being undertaken has found “just over 10” cases with what is called “S-gene dropout”, which is associated with Omicron.

He said a full genomic sequencing process is now underway on those samples. There is at least one suspected case of the Omicron Covid-19 variant in Ireland, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said.

Speaking on Monday, Mr Donnelly said a number of Covid-19 cases with the S-gene dropout evident in Omicron have been identified. These swabs are being analysed for sequencing.

Mr Donnelly said, in his opinion, it is “very likely” that at least some of these will be the Omicron variant.

Scientists became aware of the new strain on November 23, after samples were uploaded to a coronavirus variant tracking website from South Africa, Hong Kong and then Botswana. Cases of the Omicron variant have since been confirmed in a number of countries including England, Scotland, Israel, Belgium, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal.

Speaking on his way into Government Buildings, Mr Donnelly said that people who are living with someone who has returned from any of the seven listed south African countries must quarantine at home for 10 days.

The three party leaders in government met with members of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) on Monday to discuss the emergence of this new variant. Nphet has been assessing the latest data on the virus and developments across Europe in recent days.

Despite the news that the new strain may be in Ireland, Mr Donnelly ruled out any immediate escalation of social restrictions beyond what is expected tomorrow in relation to children. He said that "at this point" no major changes are being proposed in terms of Covid-19 restrictions.

He said that the recommendations are based on a wide number of things and there has been a stabilisation of hospital numbers of the last two-and-a-half weeks. Mr Donnelly said commercial pantomime shows will still be able to continue but the advice will be that children do not attend. 

When pressed in relation to their continuing viability, Mr Donnelly said government will step in and offer supports to those businesses affected.

He was speaking after the South African scientist who discovered the Omicron variant said there is “no evidence” that symptoms associated with the strain are more aggressive than other variants.

Dr Allison Glass of the Lancet Laboratory in Johannesburg expressed disappointment that travel restrictions had been imposed on South Africa when the reality was that such information was important to plan for a possible surge, she said.

Dr Glass said that such information needed to be disclosed, but reactions as had been seen in the past few days could make the scientific community reluctant to be transparent “when there is this type of backlash”, she said.

Many countries do not carry out genome sequencing and just because they were not aware did not mean there were no variants.

“It’s disappointing that we’re being punished for being on top of what’s happening.” Dr Glass said that it was the vigilance of a junior scientist that identified the new variant and that so far the symptoms they were seeing were mild.