The Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan said the National Public Health Emergency Team is “genuinely concerned” about the number of cases of the variant of Covid-19 first identified in India that have been detected in Ireland.
Speaking at the weekly Department of Health briefing, the Chair of NPHET’s Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group Professor Philip Nolan said the number of people hospitalised and in ICU remains “very stable”, as does the daily incidence of the disease.Prof Nolan said despite “severe limitations to the volume and detail of data” received due to the cyberattack on the HSE, NPHET has “reliable data” on the key indicators of disease.
Dr Tony Holohan said data from Public Health England due to be published later today is likely to show a decrease in effectiveness of the vaccine in prevention of transmission of this variant, after the 1st dose.Dr Holohan said, “In broad terms you could characterise the virus here at the moment as, for the most part the sky is blue but there is a black cloud on the horizon which is the Indian variant.”