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Including updated advice on vaccine provision to under-40s in Delta variant projections would not have significantly changed the stark warning over the Covid strain’s potential impact, an infectious diseases expert has said.
Prof Sam McConkey said he had examined the models used by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) and understood the decision the Government made to pause plans to reopen the indoor hospitality sector from July 5th.
There was criticism on Wednesday of the decision after it emerged that the latest advice from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac), which said AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson shots could be given to the under 40s, was not factored into the projections.
However, Prof McConkey told Newstalk Breakfast it would not have made a huge difference to the worst case scenario as “most of the bad cases” would be among older people. He said having more young people vaccinated would improve the pandemic situation “but only by a small amount”.
Prof Philip Nolan, chair of Nphet’s epidemiological modelling advisory group, sought to explain the modelling used to advise Government in a series of Twitter posts on Wednesday.
‘Very significant damage’
He said the general resumption of indoor hospitality from July 5th would have risked significant surges in cases, with the Delta variant potentially causing “very significant damage” if allowed to spread in a partially vaccinated population.
“While 70-80 per cent of cases will be in people under 40, there will be a lot of infections and a lot of adverse outcomes in people over 40,” he said. “About 70 per cent of the hospitalisations and over 99 per cent of the deaths would be in people over 40.
“Why would this happen if everyone is vaccinated? Vaccines offer extraordinary protection, but not perfect. We have almost 500,000 people aged 70 and over. Even if the vaccine is 95 per cent effective in preventing severe disease, 25,000 people remain vulnerable.”
Prof McConkey said other public health approaches could be implemented such as antigen testing, which was successful in identifying positive cases. This type of rapid testing could be used for large-scale sporting and music events, he said.
However, he warned some of the antigen tests that emerged earlier in the pandemic did not live up to the manufacturer’s claims.
On the same programme, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien called for antigen testing to be used more widely.
Key role
Mr O’Brien said he really believed antigen testing had a key role to play as part of the “corona pass” system while the vaccination programme was expanded.
The Government is planning to continue setting up an indoor-vaccine certificate scheme, despite criticism of the move, to allow access to indoor hospitality, but officials are understood to be open to examining allowing antigen or other forms of testing be used alongside it.
Opposition politicians and others have said that using vaccination as a basis for allowing access to the likes of pubs and restaurants would be divisive given it would lead to the exclusion of younger people and those not willing to take a jab.
Two Fine Gael TDs last night said they would not support moves to introduce a “vaccine pass” if there was a vote called in the Dáil on it.
Former minister Michael Ring said he would not vote for the measure. “We will let thousands of people into the country, but we ourselves can’t have a meal,” he said.
Kilkenny TD John Paul Phelan described the announcement and subsequent media interviews about it as “car-crash stuff”.
Options on the table
Restaurants Association of Ireland chief executive Adrian Cummins said options such as antigen testing and PCR testing needed to be discussed in detail to find a viable solution to get hospitality businesses back open. He said all options were on the table when it came to plans to reopen the sector.
A working group will start work on Monday, he said, to examine how a corona pass would or could work while data from the UK was awaited. This information could indicate that it would be possible for the sector to reopen in a few weeks, he added.
“We are working to have a solution in place so we can get our businesses back open. We have a blank sheet of paper, we are open to all options on the table,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
The key issue was the legality of any such vaccine certificate, who would police the system, how would rogue operators be regulated and whether gardaí would have powers to enter a premises.