Ireland to reach high-level of vaccine protection by mid-September

The State will reach a “high level” of Covid-19 protection from vaccines in mid-September, after which point the numbers of new cases should start to decline, Prof Philip Nolan has said.

Prof Nolan, head of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) data modelling group, said 90 per cent of the adult population should be fully vaccinated by then.

Ministers are expected to proceed with the phased reopening over the autumn and winter, despite the recent surge in cases associated with the Delta variant.

The reopening plan will set timelines for the reopening of the arts and live entertainment sectors, religious services, indoor sports, workplaces, indoor events and leisure outlets such as bingo halls, arcades and casinos.

“In terms of protecting or offering a high level of protection against the disease, we are really not there yet. We should reach that in the course of September … from that point the number of infections in the population should start to slowly decline,” Prof Nolan said.

The risk of catching or spreading the virus “should reach its lowest point” by November or December, he told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland.

At present 85 per cent of adults in the Republic are fully vaccinated, while 91 per cent are partially vaccinated and awaiting a second dose.

“We expect the numbers in hospital and the numbers in intensive care to increase over the next two to three weeks at least,” he said.

There were 320 people in hospital with Covid-19 on Sunday evening, 64 of which had been confirmed as positive cases in the last 24 hours.

Some 59 Covid-19 patients were in intensive care, according to the latest HSE daily operations report.

There had been around 200 admissions into intensive care since April this year, three quarters of which had not been vaccinated.

“Nineteen out of 20 people who were admitted to ICU over the past several months had no vaccination, or were partially vaccinated,” he said.

There was also a small increase in the number of younger people requiring treatment in intensive care for Covid-19, he said.

“Even when vaccinated, we are asking people to continue with those very basic measures,” such as mask wearing and social distancing, Prof Nolan said.

Nphet will meet on Wednesday to provide advice to Government, ahead of a Cabinet meeting on Friday where Ministers will discuss easing the remaining restrictions.

“In public health terms the advice is what the advice always has been, that we need to achieve very high levels of vaccination protection in the population, and we are achieving that. We are absolutely on track to exceed our expectations,” he said.

“Restrictions will fall away, so we have to prepare a plan with the high-level of vaccine protection, to over time remove those remaining formal restrictions that are upon us,” he added.

Basic measures such as encouraging people with symptoms of the virus to immediately self-isolate would continue.

It was a “priority” to reopen schools and allow college students to return to “a near-normal third-level experience” over the coming weeks, the Nphet official said.

In colleges there would be “some really large classes that will remain online, largely to slightly reduce the number of students on campus on any given day.”

Prof Nolan, who is also the outgoing president of Maynooth University, said while online teaching had worked during the pandemic, it was “simply not the same” as in-person lectures and classes.

There were 1,688 new cases of Covid-19 reported on Sunday, with the current wave expected to peak next month.

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