Dr Mike Ryan: Covid could leave Ireland's emergency rooms full this winter

“We’ve seen direct attacks on health workers, terrible, terrible attacks,” Dr Michael Ryan said. File picture: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP

Covid-19 could still bring significant challenges this winter and it's a dangerous assumption to think health systems can cope with fresh waves of the virus, a senior figure in the World Health Organisation has said.

Dr Mike Ryan said many countries are sequencing only a fraction of the Covid cases they used to check, and he is not confident there is an accurate picture of the virus.