health minister Stephen Donnelly has said Covid-19 cases and hospitalisation could be worse than what we witnessed after christmas last year due to the transmission of the Omicron variant.
Minister Donnelly said preliminary modelling from NPHET is “serious” and “stark” that the Coalition leaders received on Wednesday night.
He said vaccines and boosters are protecting people from serious illness.
Minister Donnelly said: “The problem Ireland has and what the UK is experiencing is because it is so much more transmissible that even though it’s a smaller individual risk as long as people are vaccinated, because so many people are likely to become infected, it still has a serious implication in terms of the number of people in hospital.
“And we saw some preliminary modelling last night from Professor Nolan and the reality is the situation is very stark with Omicron.”
He said “it is entirely possible” that Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations could be worse.
He said: “It’s to do with the transmissibility of the virus.
“Based on what we’re seeing in the UK, it is reasonable to say we are looking at a very high number of cases in the coming weeks.
“But there are things we know that are serious, we know it’s far more transmissible than Delta and we can see the evidence in the UK now they are reporting their highest cases.”
Speaking at Government Buildings on Wednesday night, Minister Donnelly said the protection vaccines offer without the booster jab is significantly lower against the Omicron variant than Delta.
He added: “You’re more likely to become symptomatic with Omicron if you’ve just had two vaccines..our working hypothesis is that the booster is really, really important in terms of protecting people.
“The assumption in the modelling if you’re boosted offers 97% additional protection against severe illness to Omicron.
“The vaccines with the booster are the big difference from last year.”
Minister Donnelly announced an update to the booster programme and said starting next week, over 40s will begin receiving appointments from vaccine centres with doses commencing the following week.
He said that people with underlying conditions, healthcare workers, over 50s, nursing home residents and pregnant women – “all of those groups will have been offered a booster by the end of the year.”
Minister Donnelly said GPs will continue giving a booster vaccine to the higher risk groups and “then have discretion to move through their patient base.”
The 15-minute observation period after a person is administered a Covid-19 vaccine is to be shelved in order to speed up the vaccination programme.