Dr. Colm Henry:

I thank the Senator. I do not have the exact figures for fatalities, but the severity of illness is greatly reduced compared with previous subvariants. Omicron is less likely to cause severe illness, conversion to intensive care and mortality. Some of this is also down the enhanced protection of the population through vaccination. I can source the exact figures for the Senator. There is always a bit of a lag, but I can get them from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.

On vaccination, we saw widespread uptake in the population, approaching 96% of the eligible adult population, for the primary vaccination course. For the first booster, something of the order of 78% of those who took the primary course took it up. For the second booster, it was fewer. We are looking at 60% or thereabouts in that regard. The third booster, for those aged 65 and over and those below the age of 65 who are immunosuppressed, it is too early to say, but suffice to say that uptake is more sluggish than in previous rounds. The advice we are getting from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and others is that some of the elements that motivated people to get vaccinated before are not as strong as they were during the worst phases of the pandemic.