Dr. David Nabarro:

Quite a high number of the people reported to have Covid are involved in providing healthcare and so this area needs continued investigation. We are seeing that there are multiple reasons that healthcare professionals get exposed and become ill. These are not always to do with the fact that they are picking it up where they work; they may actually be picking it up in the community. Let us look at the healthcare situation. Obviously, protective equipment has got to be available. My understanding is that Ireland, like many other countries, had difficulty at the beginning with ensuring adequate supplies. According to my information, these have been dealt with pretty comprehensively and in a satisfactory way.

The second point is that we must also try to make certain that within the hospital facility, every action possible can be taken to reduce the risk, due to the physical layout of the place, of Covid spreading. In countries where hospital buildings are quite old, have been purpose built and are not ideal for dealing with infection control, this can be a challenge. I have seen, from many countries around the world, that it just gets tough. My last point is that I understand the Government is looking extremely hard at ways to try to reduce, to as low a point as possible, the risk to healthcare professionals and I commend it for that.