Vaccination and reopening priorities
Deputy Bruton asked whether the same focus given to reopening education could be applied to reopening other sectors safely, citing vaccination data. The Tánaiste said education, childcare and construction were reopening in phases, but warned against speculation about wider easing before restrictions were reviewed.
I thank the national immunisation advisory committee for its really important advice on vaccinations. Data from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, last week demonstrate that successfully reaching people aged over 65 would stop 93% of deaths that have occurred from Covid-19, whereas reaching those with underlying conditions would stop 87% of people having to enter intensive care units.
Successful vaccination is really important but we cannot count any chickens before they hatch. Could we devote the sort of attention that is being devoted to reopening education safely to reopening some of the other areas that are affected by level 5 and level 4 restrictions? I am thinking about mental health services, childcare, safe pods for isolated people, worship and outdoor activity. With warmer weather, could we find ways to improve ventilation and use antigen testing to make such venues or activities safer? There is potential that could be explored.
Comment on this
Under level 5 restrictions, we are allowed to reopen educational facilities. That will happen on a phased basis, starting with special schools quite soon, along with childcare and construction. Much work is being done to enable the safe reopening of those sectors. We are loath to speak too much about opening other sectors because we do not want to give rise to anticipatory behaviour. We know when people anticipate the easing of restrictions, they tend to drop their guard, and we do not want that to happen on this occasion. There is no guarantee we will be able to ease restrictions on 5 March but we hope to do so.
We are expecting updated guidance on ventilation, which is really important, and it is increasingly acknowledged that good ventilation is one of the tools we can use to prevent the spread of this virus. That is being done.
Antigen testing is more complicated and the view from the Chief Medical Officer and the National Public Health Emergency Team is that antigen testing, including mass antigen testing, misses too many positive cases. In one test, it missed five from six positive cases. They have indicated it is only particularly useful in symptomatic cases and outbreaks but not as a mass screening tool for travel, schools, events or anything like that.