Professor Martin Cormican:

As the Deputy noted, variants do come along from time to time. It is often difficult to predict exactly how a variant will respond to the vaccine but it is a concern. The HSE agrees that it is important to have an emphasis on reducing the chance of variants that might escape from the vaccination being introduced. We are very much more comfortable that there are better controls on that in place than was the case previously. The risk of that in some respects becomes greater because as more of the population is vaccinated, the advantage that a variant which could escape the vaccine has becomes greater, so it is really important that we are in a position to control that.

The other point that is important in respect of variants is that variants do not just happen in other countries. They can happen anywhere so the continued work of our public health colleagues and all of the initiatives the public is supporting to keep the number of cases down are also important in reducing the risk that a virus variant might start here. Every time the virus copies itself, there is some level of risk that it will change so if we have thousands of people here getting infected every day, there is a greater chance that a variant that will cause us trouble will arise here but if we keep the number of people who are getting infected here lower, the chance of us getting a variant arising here that will cause us concern is lower. It involve two parts. One is trying to reduce the risk of it coming in and there are controls in place around that. The other thing that remains important is keeping the number of infections in this country as low as we can reasonably and practicably manage because it could start here just as it could start in any other country.