Omicron will be Ireland’s dominant Covid variant by Christmas (2024)

Omicron will be Ireland’s dominant Covid-19 variant by Christmas as data suggests cases of the new strain are doubling every three days in Britain, a public health expert has said.

Gabriel Scally, public health professor at the University of Bristol, said the variant had the potential to cripple the health service by the end of the year if the government did not step up control measures.

“Last year I said if you hugged your friends, you may be burying them. This Christmas is of course different. We have the protection of the vaccine that will save so many lives. But hospitals can still be overwhelmed like they were and people will still die,” Scally said.

He added that early indications showed that Omicron could be more transmissible than Delta and that it would “inevitably” become the dominant variant in Ireland. “By Christmas at least, socialising during the season will give it a boost too,” he said.

Official data from Britain suggest that more than a thousand people a day are being infected with the Omicron variant and that it will account for most of the country’s cases within a month.

Scientific advisers to the government believe that Omicron infections in Britain are doubling every three days. One scientist said that there would soon be so many cases that travel restrictions become pointless.

Alastair Grant, of the University of East Anglia, said the R value, meaning the average number of people each case goes on to infect, was about 3.5. Grant added that the variant was more effective at escaping immunity and that the primary concern was the increasing pressure on hospitals.

Scally said the government could avoid the need for a lockdown if more action was taken to improve mask wearing, ventilation, booster shot uptake and testing and tracing systems.

“If we can get people to wear effective masks — FFP2 or FFP3 — rather than the flimsy fabric ones and if Hepa filters were rolled out, it would make a significant difference,” he said. “This is a more transmissible variant of an airborne disease. The focus needs to be on cleaner air.”

Scally added that additional protection from the booster vaccine and the eventual rollout of vaccines for children would reduce serious illness and death. “But we can’t put all our eggs in that basket. Vaccines are not the sole solution,” he said.

“Our testing and tracing also needs to be more accurate and quick especially coming into Christmas. If we can isolate cases quickly we can do what Ireland did with the measles and essentially eradicate it.”

Micheál Martin told the Dail yesterday that more than 215,000 appointments for Covid-19 booster shots were missed in the past two weeks because there was not the same urgency to get the third dose compared with the first and second jab.

Martin said in the week beginning November 22, 208,000 appointments were made, but that only about 80,000 people turned up to receive their booster shot. Last week 180,000 appointments were made but 93,000 people turned up.

“The booster vaccination has been shown to produce very, very strong antibody responses and are likely to provide protection against severe disease, hospitalisation and death from most variants, including Delta and Omicron,” he said.

Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Fein leader, said schools had been forced to open windows during the winter for good ventilation and that Martin had ignored expert advice to install air purifiers to classrooms. A report submitted by the Expert Group on the Role of Ventilation in Reducing Transmission of Covid-19 recommended the use of Hepa filters in classrooms that were poorly ventilated.

“We’re nearly two years into this pandemic but government still hasn’t delivered a plan for proper ventilation in our schools,” McDonald said. “The World Health Organisation, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and indeed, the Government’s own expert group on ventilation, have all emphasised the value of Hepa filters in keeping schools safe.”

Martin said schools would be in a position to buy Hepa filters for classrooms and added that there was “no one magic silver bullet” to address Covid-19. The filters cost between €1500 and €1800 each.

Alan Kelly, the Labour Party leader, said in the Dail that the government’s decision to introduce a protocol that would require Nphet members to notify the government about media interviews was “worrying from a transparency point of view”.

Paul Clarkson, the government press secretary, said after a cabinet meeting yesterday that the media would have to go through the HSE or Department of Health press office to organise interviews with public health officials. Clarkson added that public health officials had decided on their own to cancel interviews over the weekend.

He said the changes would address “too many voices” being in the media at once and that key messages were not being shared. He added that Nphet members organised to speak to the media will be given “a few lines” with key points for interviews.

The Department of Health confirmed 5,590 new cases of Covid-19 yesterday (TUES). There are 505 people in hospital with the disease, down 31 from Monday. This includes 117 patients in intensive care, up seven from the previous day.

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