Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are sobering case studies, which medical experts are examining, relating to long-term issues, including respiratory issues. We do not know the long-term effects. Doctors and scientists do not know if there are subtle, longer term health complications among people who get this virus. They will not know for a while by definition. However, they point to other diseases which have long-term impacts. I take the Chairman's points, which are reasonable, but given that this is a novel virus unlike anything he or I have ever seen, and given the loss of life it has caused and the serious warnings we have had from doctors and scientists saying there may well be longer issues, I hope he will agree that we must do everything we can to suppress the virus.s

He asked what the strategy was. Right now, it is to use the targeted measures, as we are doing, and to work as a nation in solidarity to follow basic but very effective infection control measures to suppress the virus and get on with opening our society, public services, and the economy and protecting jobs.