John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to focus on three issues in my remarks. The first is what I would describe as a public relations strategy that will combat vaccine scepticism. We have seen reports in the past week alone that one third of Irish people are wary about the vaccine. A total of 12% of people believe they will not take it. If a vaccine were to be introduced into Ireland that had, say, a 90% effective rate we will need 85% of the population to take that vaccine for it to have any sort of effect. It is very important that we make it clear-cut and obvious that this vaccine is safe to take, that it has to be taken for the greater good, and that there will not be any problem with it. That will be a difficult task because we have seen the issue trending on social media. Conspiracy theories, downright lies and whatever can take hold of the pubic imagination and, for want of a better description, spread like wildfire. As Senator Malcolm Byrne said earlier, we need a clear, pro-science approach based on logic and data that will show that we have to take the vaccine and that it has to be done as soon as possible.

The second issue I want to focus on is what I spoke about earlier in the week in the Seanad, which is the roll-out strategy for getting out the vaccine across the entire population. That can be done in a couple of ways. In the first instance, when the Taoiseach brings this to Government on 11 December, as he said he wants to do, that should be published for the public at large. That would be very welcome coming out of this lockdown because it would show people that there is real light at the end of the tunnel, that this is the vaccine roll-out strategy, this is what we intend to do to get it through our population, and that these are the timeframes and targets for when we want to do it. That would give solace to people going into December and the Christmas period and into early January. The roll-out strategy should involve a list of tiers of people we will vaccinate first, namely, the most vulnerable, the elderly, healthcare workers and people working in front-line jobs. We would work down the list in that way. We want to have those people vaccinated by certain dates to ensure there is a clear trajectory and timeline whereby people can say that X number of the population will be vaccinated by the end of January, X number will be vaccinated by the end of February and so on. That would be a good idea in terms of reassuring people on 11 December.

My final point relates to the concept of lockdown strategies. I am torn about that. On one level it is easy to listen to people who say we need to open this or that or do this or that. It is clear that this virus thrives in crowded places. That is the one aspect we know about it. It will be another two years before countries across the world can sit down and say that Ireland, New Zealand or Sweden did it right when clear, clinical data will be available to people. That is the only time when the world will be able to say that this or that country got it right or this or that country could have done better. Like every other country in the world, we are dealing with something that is unprecedented; we have never seen it before. That has to be acknowledged.s

Lockdowns are a blunt strategy but at this point in time they are the most effective strategy available to us. I would much rather be at level 3 and the concept of a third lockdown, possibly next year, has to be forgotten. I do not believe that is feasible because the virus has changed so much since March of this year. We know much more about it. We should not be necessitating lockdowns based on the metrics of case numbers given by RTÉ and so on every night. Lockdowns should not be decided upon case numbers. If the point is to live alongside Covid-19, as a society we should be happy with restrictions and case numbers bubbling around at a certain level. I do not believe that necessitates putting the entire country into a stricter lockdown. We did it this time. I backed that, but I believe we would find it extremely difficult to get public buy-in for that a third time around. However, if we have a clear vaccine roll-out strategy that would allow us tell people that this is the final extra time, as such, in this Covid nightmare that started nearly ten months ago, it would give people much more confidence to buy into anything else that is coming down the road.