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SENIOR PUBLIC HEALTH figures have spoken out very strongly against Ireland adopting any strategy akin to “herd immunity” to tackle Covid-19 and made clear it’s not a strategy that will be adopted here.
Pursuing it would ignore the long-term health effects for some people who develop Covid-19, would mean many young people would die and make it more difficult to prevent older and more at-risk populations getting ill and dying from Covid-19.
This concept has been frequently referenced since the beginning of the pandemic, and basically suggests that lockdowns would be avoided by allowing the virus to spread amongst communities while putting in safeguards to protect those most at risk of getting seriously ill or dying from Covid-19.
The hope is that, eventually, a natural immunity to the disease is developed.
In the early days of Covid-19, it appeared the UK government was pursuing such a strategy but that quickly changed as lockdown measures were introduced amid a sharp spike in cases, hospitalisations and deaths.
After being raised at the Oireachtas Special Committee on Covid-19 response earlier, public health officials at tonight’s Department of Health briefing spoke strongly against the idea of pursuing herd immunity.
NPHET’s epidemiological modelling advisory group chair Professor Philip Nolan said tonight there was no guarantee herd immunity would work and is ethically questionable.
“The problem with that entire strategy is first of all there’s no guarantee that we will build up herd immunity to a significant extent by letting the disease travel through young people,” he said.
An awful lot of young people might have to die in order for sufficient infections to occur to get anywhere near it.
Professor Nolan also said that said that “even if it were ethically” appropriate to suggest that more at-risk groups from Covid-19, such as older people, isolate themselves from the rest of the community while such a strategy was being pursued, there’s no guarantee they wouldn’t get the disease.
“I could certainly never advise we take the kind of risks explicit in adopting this kind of strategy that allows this disease to travel through young people with some, in my view, vain hope of protecting older people,” he said. “And also in the unproven hope it will render the population immune for future infection.”
HSE chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry said the evidence is not justified in people having a sustained immunity after they’ve caught this virus. Specifically referencing safeguards on nursing homes, even the strongest defences wouldn’t protect residents there if the virus was allowed to spread rampantly in the community, he said.
Dr Henry said that isolating older people and letting them “fend for themselves” is “simply not acceptable and has no place in any civilised society”.
Acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn added that the strategy ignores the increasing evidence around the long-term effects of Covid-19 on people of all ages.
“This disease has consequences for people of all ages. It’s certainly not a strategy that will be adopted in this country,” he said.
These comments echoed comments on herd immunity made earlier today at the Oireachtas Committee.
Addressing TDs, former chief epidemiologist for Sweden and senior World Health Organization figure Dr Johann Giesecke said there was no “100% effective way” of allowing younger populations to catch the disease and also prevent its transmission to older people, particularly in care homes.
He said: “Sweden never had herd immunity as a goal or strategy, but the strategy of protecting the old and vulnerable while allowing some spread in the population has had the by-product of herd immunity.
“I do not agree with the zero-covid approach. I do not believe it is possible or feasible as a solution. We would need to do it in each country in the world. Otherwise, it cannot work. New Zealand managed to go without any cases for 102 days and then had quite an outbreak.”
With reporting from Christina Finn and Michelle Hennessy at the Department of Health
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Wonderful news getting this off the streets.
@Derek Moean: whatever about the cannabis which is relatively harmless, good that those dangerous prescription drugs were seized. And as for the cocaine, whatever mixed white powder it is, one thing for sure is it is extremely dangerous leaving it controlled by a black market.
@Derek Moean: A quick phone call and you can have any of those drugs this morning for the same price they were yesterday. The same people who would have bought them yesterday will buy them today. This quite literally has zero impact on the market and is a complete waste of Garda resources especially when they’re cancelling 999 calls and failing to respond to urgent incidents. The insanity continues..
@Declan Doherty: definitely blame Gardai for enforcing the law. Imagine how much time they’d have to invest in other crimes if people didn’t use illegal substances….
@Paul Clancy: You are naive to think that human beings will not consume drugs. Its in our nature.
@Black Iron Tarkus: indeed. But neither could you expect society to exert no control over the recreational use of drugs really. As long as it isn’t allowed people use some caution, which holds it in check to a point but if that barrier was removed I could imagine a lot more problems with people under the influence of whatever they had taken. That said obviously the system that is there now is flawed and needs to be looked at. I do not think the answer is to think that because people will take drugs regardless we just let them at it.
@Mick Murphy: Not allowing something doesn’t stop people from doing it. If people want to take drugs they’ll take them regardless of the law. All prohibition does is drive it underground, create a profitable market for criminals and make it more dangerous for consumers. It also costs the state millions in a futile “war” when we could be generating significant revenue through taxation. We allow the sale of one of the most toxic, and harmful drugs on the planet while denying people the right to far safer alternatives. It’s hypocritical, it’s wrong and it needs to change.
@Mick Murphy: what are you basing your theory of people holding back when drugs are illegal? Is it just a gut feeling or is it based on the exponential increase in drug use since recreational drugs were made illegal?
With respect, I suggest your (and most people’s ) belief that illegality is needed to reduce use, is a fallacy with no evidence to back it up.
The next question is why you want use to reduce… if it is for public health and safety reasons, these goals would be best achieved in a legal regulated way.
If it is purely a moral point of view, that we just don’t like the idea of people altering their mental state… maybe that has no place in our laws.
People will consume drugs and have done since the dawn of time. It is part of the human condition.
@Paul Clancy, the vast majority of people who use illegal drugs do not have to commit crime to pay for their habit. How many robberies do you think The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Steve Jobs, Adam Clayton, Ronnie O’Sullivan etc had to commit to fund their drug use.
@Derek Moehan, oh yeah “wonderful” news, this will improve yours and my day, I sarcastically agree.
Who’s writing the prescriptions for that amount of tablet’s
have your say