Irish Examiner view: No excuse to remain unvaccinated

Professor Philip Nolan suggested that leaving your home with Covid or even flu-like symptoms has to become as unacceptable as drink-driving. It is an over-the-top pronouncement

Professor Philip Nolan: Comments by the chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team’s Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group may do more harm than good. File picture: Gareth Chaney

Ireland has one of the highest Covid-19 vaccination rates in the world. About three-quarters of the population is fully inoculated. That should, and does, give us reason for hope but it is now emerging that this isn’t good enough.

The reason we have such a high level of vaccinations is, arguably, due to the calm, measured, and sober advice that we have up to now received from Nphet. However, the latest pronouncement by Professor Philip Nolan, chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team’s Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, may do more harm than good.

Suggesting, as he did yesterday on RTÉ radio, that leaving your home with Covid or even flu-like symptoms has to become as unacceptable as drink-driving is over the top. As many people, particularly those with small children, will testify, the common cold and flu and their similar symptoms are circulating more with society reopened, so this risks coming across as scaremongering.

Neither are those comments original. They bear a distinct resemblance to those made by Liverpool football manager Jurgen Klopp. Angered at the low level of vaccine rates among English Premier League players, he compared those who refuse to vaccinate to drink-drivers.

Refusal to get a vaccine can rightly be regarded as dangerous to others, but is leaving the house with a headache or sore throat now the same as drinking five pints and getting behind the wheel of a car? Prof Nolan’s comments risk exasperating the public, rather than making them better informed as to the risks. There are better ways to urge the 300,000 unvaccinated people to do the right thing.

It is important that those who remain unvaccinated get the jab, not only for their own sake but for the protection of others in the community. Prof Nolan said Ireland is on a “knife-edge” balanced on vaccine protection, as the coronavirus positivity rate has risen from 8% to 10% across the country in the past week.

It is also a matter of grave concern that rates of infection are higher here than in most other EU states. This has puzzled medical experts but one reason offered for this seems to be that our vaccinations started when there were high Delta variation rates in Ireland, unlike most other European countries where the rate of infection was much lower. That means that despite our extremely high vaccination coverage, the number of people catching the virus and ending up in hospital with it remains high.

Considering the rise in case numbers, there is, in general, no excuse for remaining unvaccinated. We can all do our bit by encouraging friends and family members to get the vaccine. As Prof Nolan put it: “We as a society need to do all we can to encourage people to take up vaccination as this will reduce infection and minimise hospitalisation. We have done a great job... but could do more.”

In the meantime, we all need to remain cautious and follow public health advice. The proposed phase of reopening on October 22 is due to see most restrictions lifted. Measures that are to remain in place include isolating while feeling symptoms of Covid-19 and mask-wearing in certain settings.