Irish Examiner view: Time to move forward but let's keep our guard up

Pubs and restaurants are hopeful of an early end to restricted opening hours. Picture: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie

Although the signals remain mixed about relaxing restrictions, there are indications that Ireland may have reached the peak of the Omicron wave of Covid-19.

Professor of immunology at Maynooth University, Paul Moynagh, says it is “difficult to be completely sure”, while the head of the HSE Paul Reid proclaims “positive signs”. 

The World Health Organization’s special envoy says Ireland should “stick with what it’s doing” and not remove constraints too quickly.

Whatever decisions are made in the next few days —members of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) are expected to meet on Thursday — it is inescapable that we are moving into a different phase, and it is one that may require us to become yet more sophisticated in our comprehension of what we are facing.

In the vigils and street assemblies marking the murder of Ashling Murphy, one of the many placards held aloft stated that “male violence is a pandemic”.

It is difficult to imagine that this word would have been used before spring of 2020.

Epidemic, pandemic, endemic have all become words in a common vocabulary. But they are far from interchangeable, and each has a specific medical meaning. 

Some physicians and experts welcome the contagion becoming “endemic” (ubiquitous, persistent and regular) so that it can be contained by vaccination and increasing natural immunity. But others are far from sure.

Massive surges

Professor Christina Pagel from University College London tweeted: "The current pattern of waning vaccination, new immune evasive variants, and minimal public health response seem set to doom us to massive surges once or twice a year."

Senior GP and Oxford academic Dr Helen Salisbury warns that people may regret regarding Covid as an endemic feature of life.

"TB and smallpox were once endemic in the UK it doesn’t mean mild, it just means widespread," she said.

Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at the Scripps Research institute in California, warns “this is a real-deal virus where there’s unpredictability".

So, whatever good news arrives this week, it is important that we remain on our guard.