Dr. Tony Holohan:

Yes, we do. The reason is exactly as Senator Conway says, namely, to maintain as high a level of compliance as we can with all the basic and important public health measures which, as I outlined in the opening statement, we are going to have to continue to keep up. It was in our most recent advice. We have always emphasised the importance of clear public communications but perhaps we must take a new approach to communications that will emphasise the areas in respect of which we need to keep up a high level of compliance as we move forward with the easing of measures. For example, on the question of people with mild and other respiratory symptoms, in previous times we might have soldiered on when we had illnesses. We must accept now that we are probably putting other people at risk by doing that.

It is important when people have symptoms that at the earliest stage possible they stay away from school, work, the pub or inviting people over to their house until about 48 hours after their symptoms have resolved. We are going to have to change our cultural behaviour in that regard. All of that will be underpinned by clear and consistent messaging. Any of us who has a leadership responsibility, not just we in NPHET but everybody who is involved in communicating and messaging to the public, must reinforce this message as much as possible.

Going right back to the beginning of the pandemic, before we had a testing capacity or vaccines on the horizon, the behaviour of the person who is symptomatic and who is likely to be transmitting - even though we know there is a risk of people who do not have symptoms also transmitting - is important. If each individual who has symptoms is behaving responsibly and staying away from the kinds of settings I mentioned, if we keep up a high level of compliance with mask wearing and social distancing in circumstances where that matters and if people are particularly aware of the risk of transmission in indoor environments, those things, combined with the exceptionally high and almost unprecedentedly high levels of vaccination that we now have in this country compared with almost any other country in the world, will be necessary to keep the level of infection suppressed.

When we look at the 16 to 30 years age group in which we have a level of vaccination - it is now in the low 80s - the reality is that as they come together in the kinds of environments in which such young people come together, there will be an increased risk of transmission and we will have outbreaks and infection. We will continue to see that as the virus becomes a part of our-----