Nolan unsure over Covid texts
ONE of Ireland’s leading public health figures during Covid has said he does not know if he still has all his messages from the pandemic.
Professor Philip Nolan, the former chair of the Government’s virus modelling unit, made the admission after Leo Varadkar said he expects the Covid-19 inquiry to get ‘well under way’ this year. The Taoiseach said a memo on the terms of reference for the inquiry is to be brought to the Cabinet in ‘the next couple of weeks’.
However, he told reporters in Washington DC that it would be ‘tricky’ to find five people to sit on the evaluation panel who, ideally, had no involvement in managing the pandemic or had not expressed prejudicial views.
He added: ‘But we are determined to do it. Other countries had their evaluations and inquiries, we should have one too. And it is intended that there will be a public element to it. So that will allow people to tell their story.’
The inquiry would look at the State’s handling of the pandemic, which is expected to include the role of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET).
Prof. Nolan, who was chair of NPHET’s Modelling Advisory Group, said it is important that lessons are learned from the inquiry as he believes another pandemic is ‘inevitable’ in coming decades.
However, he said he would need to see the terms of reference to know how or if he would be engaging with the inquiry.
Asked if he had kept all his WhatsApp messages from throughout the pandemic which may useful to an inquiry, Prof. Nolan said: ‘I don’t know, to be honest with you, it’s quite some time ago.’ He also said he hoped the Irish inquiry would be different to the ‘adversarial’ approach taken in the UK. He said that approach did not lead to open, transparent and honest conversation.
Asked what NPHET got right during the pandemic, Prof. Nolan said a broad range of expertise had been mobilised quickly with a high level of trust between public health officials, government and the public.
On the other hand, he added that ‘if there was one thing that we could have responded on quicker, masks would be a good example’.