Leo forecasts ‘a good summer’ and says jobless could be back at work after Easter
THE Tánaiste has said he is optimistic that the country can have a ‘good summer’ thanks to the arrival of the coronavirus vaccine.
Leo Varadkar said he is hopeful that all nursing home residents and staff will be fully vaccinated by mid-February, a move which could potentially halve the number of deaths linked to Covid-19.
It will be after Easter – which falls in early April this year – before the vaccine is rolled out to the general population, but Mr Varadkar said many of the 400,000 people who have lost their jobs because of lockdown will be able to return to work at that point.
He told the Dermot & Dave show on Today FM: ‘I think the summer is going to be a good summer. I’m not going to say it’s a normal summer. I think it is going to be a good one, because we’ll really see the effect of the vaccine in the second quarter of this year.
‘Also, we get into the better weather, so you know I think we can l ook forward to a decent summer, and I think we can look forward to an economy really rebounding.’
He added: ‘I’m very conscious of the fact that there are 400,000
‘We can reduce death rate by 90%’
people, many of them listening to this programme now, who are out of work and on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment. I would say the vast majority of them will be back to work at some point between Easter and summer.’
Mr Varadkar added it will be after Easter before the general public – people who are under 65 and healthy – start receiving the coronavirus vaccine.
‘It’ll be after Easter, realistically. We’re going to have about 16 mass vaccination centres around the country,’ he said. ‘We have ten mill i on doses ordered, they j ust haven’t arrived yet, so we’ll have enough for everyone. It will be free. It will not be compulsory.’
Mr Varadkar also said there is ‘a reason why this is being done in a priority order’, adding: ‘If you look at people who have died of Covid, over 90% are people who are over 70 with a chronic illness.
‘So, we vaccinate all of those people first. We can reduce the death rate by 90%, we can reduce the number of people being hospitalised by a very big figure too.
‘That’s the kind of game-changer, you know. So, in the same way that we don’t vaccinate absolutely everyone against the flu every year, we prioritise those most at risk and that benefits everyone.’
All residents of nursing homes will have their first dose of the vaccine by the end of January, the Fine Gael leader said.
He added: ‘The reason why we’re doing nursing home staff and residents first is over half the deaths in the first wave were people in nursing homes. So, even though it’s only a small percentage of the population, i t could actually reduce the death rate in half.
‘ By the end of January, we anticipate having all the nursing h o me residents and staff vaccinated, and by mid-February they’d have their second dose.’
Mr Varadkar urged listeners to follow public health advice, saying: ‘The situation is very serious, with nearly 1,600 patients in hospital at the moment who have Covid. We still have over 500 beds available across the system. 127 in ICU with 38 available. So we’re very much under pressure, but we are coping. The worry that we have is the situation is still deteriorating.’
Mr Varadkar said the lag between cases reported and admissions to hospital means the health service will come under continued stress in the coming weeks.
However, he advised people who need medical help to continue to visit hospitals.
The Tánaiste said: ‘People who are, you know, suffering from an emergency, who maybe experiencing, say, a stroke or heart attack, don’t be afraid to go to hospitals, don’t be afraid to use the emergency service.’
Meanwhile, a quantity of the newly approved Moderna vaccine is due to arrive in Ireland by this week, the chair of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee has said. The US company, which secured EU approval for its vaccine last week, started shipping deliveries to the bloc yesterday.
Ireland is in line for just under 900,000 dose soft he two-jab vaccine t his year under an agreement brokered with the firm by the EU.
The authorisation process for the Astr a Zeneca jab has also commenced, with data submitted to European regulators.