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There needs to be a long-term plan for coping with Covid-19 in case the current level of immunity wanes, a leading professor of immunology has said.
Record-breaking daily case counts have been recorded multiple times over the past few weeks as a result of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant.
The number of Covid patients in hospital topped 1,000 this week – the first time since February 2021 – but the number in ICU has remained relatively stable.
Prof Paul Moynagh, of Maynooth University said the high level of virus within the community, combined with the public health measures, have resulted in a “wall of immunity”.
The high numbers of people who had already been infected, the success of the vaccination programme and the subsequent booster programme would protect against new infections, he said.
However, speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, he warned that this could wane in time which was why there was a need for a long-term plan.
While officially half a million cases had been identified in the past eight weeks, and one million cases was reached this week, in reality the figure was more likely to be 1.5 million, added Prof Moynagh.
The virus was now going to find it difficult to find new people to infect, he said.
The success of the vaccine campaign was the reason why ICU numbers were steady, he added.
Masks
On Tuesday, The Irish Times reported that the State’s public health team has raised the prospect of greater use of higher-grade respirator masks, advising the Government that they may better protect people at higher risk from Covid-19.
The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has advised that people can choose to wear FFP3 and the slightly lower-grade FFP2 respirator or medical masks instead of cloth masks if they wish, but stopped short of recommending the higher-grade masks to the public instead of cloth ones.
Responding to this, Prof Moynagh said that he did not understand why approval for FFP2/N5 masks had been withheld until now.
“We’re coming to this very late,” he said, adding that all of the evidence showed that the higher grade masks performed very well and were better than cloth masks.
Health workers
Separately, it is expected that the Cabinet is likely to consider easing the requirement for healthcare workers who are close contacts of Covid-19 cases to isolate in order to ease pressure on staff numbers.
Some 15,000 HSE staff are currently off duty for Covid-related reasons, HSE chief executive Paul Reid said at the weekend.
New advice from the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) for countries which are experiencing extreme stress on their healthcare systems was issued over the weekend.
It is understood that Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan and senior Nphet figures are considering the ECDC advice, which may go to ministers on Wednesday.