Public told to take command of Covid situation when Govt not allowing them to, prof says

Vivienne Clarke

The public has been urged to take command of their own situation with coronavirus when the Government is not giving them the full capacity to be able to do so, a professor of immunovirology has said.

Prof Liam Fanning from University College Cork said the rise in Covid-19 cases to almost 1,000 yesterday meant that the situation was moving from pandemic to endemic.

He told Newstalk Breakfast that not using antigen testing as a public health measure was like “hurling with one hand”.

“We need to have an understanding that this virus will actually circulate only in those that are unvaccinated,” he said.

“We know that a small number of individuals who were vaccinated picked up this infection, but we're now moving into a phase where we start considering that this is a common enough virus and it is going to be with us for the next couple of years.”

'Nowhere near' January

Prof Fanning said a recent Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) report had indicated that Ireland had had one of the lowest levels in Europe of hospitalisations.

With 60 per cent of the population doubly vaccinated and a further 10 per cent “probably immune” because they had recovered from Covid-19, the situation in Ireland was “nowhere near” what it had been like last January, he said.

It was necessary “to drill down” into the details of those who were in intensive care units, he added. What was their age profile, the professor asked.

Prof Fanning's comments come after the Tánaiste said people who are not fully vaccinated are the "new vulnerable" and should live the coming weeks "like it is March 2020" when a two-kilometre travel limit was imposed.