Covid committee hears ‘significant peaks’ coming soon to Ireland

Local spikes in infection followed by targeted response measures is the “new reality” faced by the country, the Oireachtas Covid-19 committee has been told.

Giving evidence to the Committee, Health Service Executive chief executive Paul Reid said that while there had been a focus on a second surge, “the reality is that what we are seeing in the country right now is probably what we are going to be living with for the future with this virus.”

“We are going to see significant peaks, and, we hope, significant troughs very soon and those changes may not always be national,” Mr Reid said. “That is the new reality for us in terms of living with this virus and the transmission we have seen to date.”

The committee also heard that only around half of close contacts of confirmed cases of Covid-19 are turning up for their second test for the virus, the Health Service Executive.

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Testing regime

Niamh O’Beirne, who is the HSE’s lead on testing strategy, told Fine Gael’s Fergus O’Dowd that close contacts are referred for two tests – on “day zero” and again a week later, known as “day seven” tests.

“Somewhere between 70 and 80 per cent of people will show up for day zero tests, and on occasion it gets closer to 85 per cent,” she said. “On the day 7 tests, it is closer to 50 per cent. Looking at the age profiles, the cohorts who have the most difficulty tend to be the very young and the more elderly,” she said.

She added that the HSE is examining different tests for children, including saliva tests, “to make it an easier appointment to attend”.

The HSE were also questioned extensively about the State’s testing regime, as well as new specific testing programmes focused on the meat industry. The committee heard that the median turnaround time for a test to be completed is now 2.2 days, and the average is 2.4 days.

So far, three meat plants with a workforce of 2,254 have been tested, and a total of 50,000 employees will be covered by the serial testing programme, Mr Reid told Deputy Pádraig O’Sullivan. In direct provision centres, which will also be covered by a rolling – or “serial” – testing programme, some 8,000 residents and staff will be covered. This is on top of around 30,000 staff and residents in nursing homes, the committee was told.

He said that serial testing “gives a lot of reassurance” but warned that it comes at a “very significant cost and absorbs a lot of resources”. “It is not the major tool with which we can protect the public,” he said, emphasising the importance of public health measures over testing as a way of controlling the virus.

The HSE confirmed that the State is picking up the cost of testing in meat plants, but that where private testing is commissioned by individual factories, it is not covered by the exchequer.

Compensation

Later in the day, the committee heard from Prof Philip Nolan, a member of the National Public Health Emergency Team, that self-isolation or restricted movements will continue to apply to travel. While testing improvements may allow for some scope to lessen restrictions, “realistically, in the long term, we are going to be living with restrictions on movement,” he said.

Dr Ronan Glynn, the acting chief medical officer, said he didn’t see a scenario where there would be widespread travel in the coming months. He also told the committee that “adequate compensation” must be paid for those restricting their movements.

“Economic circumstances simply should not be a barrier to people coming forward and getting tested,” he said.

Prof Nolan also said that there was very little evidence of child to child transmission, and little evidence of child to adult transmission outside the household. He warned that it is “really important not to over-react when cases are detected in school”.

Dr Glynn detailed two cases as examples of clusters linked to sport, with 22 and two positive cases identified in the respective outbreaks.

Dr Glynn signalled that Kildare may see restrictions lifted early if the virus is felt to be at an acceptable level, which was later echoed by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.