Tony Holohan: 80% of eligible population has been boosted

Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer Picture: Julien Behal/PA Wire

The world is still facing a pandemic but the success of the vaccination programme in Ireland and Europe means many restrictions can be re-assessed, the Oireachtas Health Committee heard on Wednesday.

Members of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) told the committee restrictions including mask-wearing and singing in schools will be discussed at their meeting on February 17, with fresh advice expected for government then.

Minister for State in the Department of Health Frank Feighan said that Ireland's Covid19 outlook is "broadly positive".

As of Monday, there were 692 confirmed cases in hospital across the country down from 855 from the week previously, on the same day, there were 72 confirmed cases in ICU compared to 76 out of 24 January.

"Perhaps most significantly, the evidence to confirm the positive news that during the Omicron wave, there has been a reduced burden of severe health outcome compared to the previous waves of infections. We have seen these trends continue since then, and the current epidemiological data continues to provide a broadly positive outlook," Mr Feighan said.

"While the majority of restrictions have now been lifted. We must remember that the COVID 19 pandemic is not over.

Pictured a barman wearing a face mask while serving people as they enjoying a pint at a Pub in Dublin as it looks like the opening hours for pubs and restaurants might get extended. Photograph: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie

"The threat of new variants remains and the government is now focusing on ensuring systems of surveillance and response and broader health service capacity are strengthened to ensure Ireland is best placed to deal with any new emerging threats."

Minister of State Mary Butler told the Dáil there are still high numbers of outbreaks in nursing homes, with outbreaks currently being experienced in over 40% of nursing homes as of yesterday.

225 nursing homes currently have an outbreak.

"The ongoing monitoring and management of COVID-19 across the nursing home sector remains a critical focus for me and the government as a whole," she said.

The state has provided and continues to provide a range of support to the nursing home sector."

Earlier today, Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said he expects new guidelines “in the short term” from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

However, he said: “The majority of the measures that have been important will continue to be important.” 

There are 32 members now on the reduced Nphet, but there is still much work to do, he said.

The HSE and government will consider how the vaccination infrastructure and testing and tracing system will be maintained, he told Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane.

“We need to keep working to ensure that we are able to shape the response,” he said. “We don’t expect to be advising the need to test every individual irrespective of the severity of symptoms.” 

He said a plan is being developed for the use of anti-virals and other Covid-19 treatments over the long term.

Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer. Picture: Paddy Cummins /Collins Dublin

There is no advice yet around whether teens aged 13 to 16 will need a booster, Dr Ronan Glynn, deputy chief medical officer said. So far only 10 EU countries have adopted this measure, he said.

Senator Martin Conway and TD Cathal Crowe asked Nphet to discuss antigen tests including comments made by Professor Philip Nolan last year equating antigen testing with ‘snake oil’.

“In general terms, the advice that we give is they are useful in certain circumstances, in particular in the circumstance of high incidence,” Dr Holohan said. 

“You can trust the result of the test much more in those situations.” 

Amárach data shows even up to this week “ a significant proportion” of symptomatic people getting a negative result from an antigen test do not isolate or go for PCR tests, he said. This data is on the Department of Health website.

Dr Glynn said, in response to questions about the prevalence of long Covid from People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny, studies are ongoing in Ireland. Some UK studies point to a rate as high as 10% among adults while others found just over 2%, he said.

Up to now, 80% of the eligible population are boosted, he said. On Tuesday 46 of the 66 people in ICUs were not boosted, he said.

Professor Philip Nolan, chair of the Nphet modelling group, said while case numbers remain high it is clear now vaccines significantly reduced the effects of Omicron.

“In terms of case numbers we are at the more pessimistic end,” he said. 

“But the vaccines exceeded expectation in terms of their protection against people getting severely ill and requiring critical care. Hospitalisations are around central (scenario), we peaked at over 1,000 people in hospitals.”

He said the Omicron wave was less severe in terms of deaths than many countries expected, saying: “we couldn’t have known that in advance, it would have been foolishly risky to imagine that might happen.”