Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will take this opportunity to update the House on the Government's ongoing response to Covid-19. Right now, as we look to exit level 5, we are at a critical juncture. From a healthcare perspective, we are facing the most challenging winter in living memory, and the solidarity and resilience that have been shown by our healthcare workers and the entire country will be more important than ever in the coming weeks. We are five weeks into the level 5 measures and, like many countries, Ireland has faced big decisions on the measures we need to limit the virus and on the impact these measures have on individuals, families, communities and businesses. More than 70,000 people have now tested positive and more than 2,000 have died. Every one of these represents a mother, father, son or daughter who has tragically passed away and who is mourned by their families and friends.

Two weeks ago, the Special Committee on Covid 19 Response published its report, having listened to several months' worth of evidence and I thank the committee members for all of their work. Many of the issues the committee highlighted are being seen around the globe. We know the disease is having a devastating effect internationally.

Over 58 million cases of the disease have been reported to the World Health Organization and, tragically, almost 1.4 million deaths have been notified. Many countries have had, and continue to have, big challenges in their response to the disease. Some are facing significant and damaging impacts on their healthcare systems as more and more Covid patients require hospitalisation. Thankfully, we are not at that level in Ireland. In Europe, only Finland has a lower 14-day incidence rate. Our 14-day rate was 310 per 100,000 four weeks ago. That has gone down to 109 today and is continuing to fall. It is the biggest decline anywhere in Europe. The people deserve huge credit for the work that has gone into making that happen.

There are, however, signs that progress has slowed. By the end of the third week at level 5, the reproduction number, or R number, had fallen right down to 0.6 but it is fair to say that the fourth week was not a great week. I think people were tired and compliance fell. We could not blame anybody as it has been a very difficult year. However, the result was that the number of cases flatlined, the R number was recalculated and while it stayed below 1, it had gone back up to 0.8. It will be recalculated late tomorrow night or early on Thursday, and, hopefully, we will see it come back down again. We really need to double down on the last seven or eight days of level 5 to push it right back down. The evidence also shows a recent increase in the level of social contacts. A small extra effort by everyone to limit and reduce our number of contacts will make a big difference right through to the end of the year.

At present, there are 98 clusters in residential care facilities which remain open, of which 48 are in nursing homes, so it is still a high number. There have been some large outbreaks in hospitals, as colleagues will be aware, and we are tracking numerous other outbreaks across the country, including those associated with funerals and other workplaces.

All of this remains a concern and is being monitored daily. Another area we are looking at is the number of close contacts who have not taken up the offer of testing. I would ask for the help of colleagues in the Chamber to get the message out. Many people who were deemed close contacts are being tested but some are choosing not to get tested. It is very important that everyone deemed a contact volunteers for testing. The testing programme has expanded hugely and we now have capacity, if we need it, to do up to 140,000 tests per week. That gives us one of the highest capacities anywhere in the world. The HSE deserves huge credit for being able to do that from a standing start. Over 1.8 million tests have now been done and the serial testing in nursing homes, in direct provision and in meat processing plants is ongoing, as well as mass school testing, when it is deemed appropriate by the public health leads.

Contact tracing is a big focus for colleagues and for me. The numbers have ramped very significantly and we have gone from 231 tracers in mid-September to 700. We are on our way to 800 in total. These figures do not include the contact tracers who were already working in public health departments, who are responsible for more complex contact tracing. I am delighted to share other news here as well. I recently announced a doubling of our public health workforce in the country. I am delighted to share with colleagues that, right now, over 200 interviews are ongoing and a further 200 interviews are scheduled. Good progress has been made in this regard as well.

Much of the contact tracing effort, here and abroad, focuses on forward contact tracing, that is, identifying people who may be infected by the people we know about or, in other words, finding out who their close contacts are. Our public health departments also do what is called backwards contact tracing, retrospective contact tracing or source identification. This involves understanding not who a person may affect, as that is the forward tracing, but going backwards and trying to identify the sources of infection. That is to do two things. It is to help us understand what sort of environments are driving infections but also, if we can get to them quickly, we can find other ways of contacting the people who were at those events and tell them that they too are deemed a close contact and they need to get a test and restrict their movements.

There is growing evidence of super spreaders. This is the idea that a small number of people or a small number of events can lead to a very high number of cases, and it is making backward contact tracing even more important. I am very happy to be able to share with colleagues that the HSE has done a huge amount of work in this regard. In fact, I was on a call with the HSE earlier today. Backward contact tracing is now moving well beyond where it has been deployed to date with the public health departments on complex cases because we now have this workforce of 700 and growing.

Encouragingly, as colleagues will be aware, we have seen the emergence of very positive results in terms of vaccine candidates. The reported positive trial results from AstraZeneca, BioNTech and Moderna provide reason for optimism, if cautious optimism. However, it should be noted that all proposed Covid vaccines will require approval from the European Medicines Agency. Colleagues will be aware that Ireland is participating in the process led by the European Union to procure vaccine supplies. It is an advanced purchase agreement being led by the EU and, as of this morning, we have signed up to five such vaccines.

A good amount of work remains to be done before we have a full understanding of the effectiveness of the vaccines, how long they provide immunity for, whether the effectiveness differs across particular age groups and whether it is more effective with symptomatic people, for example. Most importantly, we need assurances as to the safety of the vaccines. There are grounds for a real optimism. We are beginning to see the breakthroughs needed to move Ireland and the world on from a world dominated by Covid-19. However, until a vaccine is here and until it is widely distributed, we have to continue to rely on the tools that are available to us right now.

The scenes unfolding across Europe in recent weeks provide a stark reminder of just how bad things can get. The Dutch, for example, have had to transport patients to Germany amid of surge of cases there, Italy’s death toll, tragically, has surpassed 50,000 people in recent days and there are some really difficult things going on in countries across the European Union and across the world. These are the scenes we wanted to avoid. That is why the Government agreed to the extensive measures required in recent months to limit the spread of the virus, to keep people safe, to keep the schools open and to ensure that the hospitals and the intensive care units are not overrun. As colleagues will fully appreciate, if our health facilities were to be overrun, not only would this have a very serious impact on Covid-19 patients, but it would have a massive impact on non-Covid patients as elective care would have to be curtailed, which would lead to some very serious results.

Ultimately, the measures taken, the efforts from our front-line workers, the efforts from every person, every family, every community and every business, are all about saving lives. If the virus did not kill people, we could, for example, argue in favour of a herd immunity strategy, depending on how much damage it did. However, it does kill people, and all of the efforts, all of the measures, all of the hygiene, all of the contact tracing and testing, and everything that has been done, has been about keeping people alive and limiting the number of fatalities. It goes without saying that any one loss of life is one too many. It is worth reflecting, however, that if we look at the fatalities in the first wave versus the second wave here in Ireland, there has been a reduction of more than 90% in fatalities. For every ten people we lost in the first wave to Covid-19, we have lost one in the second wave. It really is worth re-emphasising that this comes down to our healthcare workers but also to front-line workers right across the country and the sacrifices that everybody has been making.

The question now is how we exit level 5 in a way that keeps the virus as suppressed as possible and we all know we will not have the same level of suppression when we leave level 5, while at the same time opening as much as possible.

The next few months will be challenging and there is no point in stating otherwise, but there is much to be optimistic about. I look forward to continuing to listen to colleagues' ideas on how we exit level 5 and work on moving forward in the coming weeks and months.

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