Ireland to escape a second wave of Covid, says expert
Nobel Prize winner says country ‘is done’ with the coronavirus
THE Nobel Prize-winning scientist who looked at raw data and correctly predicted Ireland’s death and infection rate would “burn itself out” in the last two weeks of May is back to reassure people there will be no second wave.
Dr Michael Levitt (73) was speaking as he prepared to jet off on his summer holiday travelling in Europe.
The Nobel Laureate made world headlines when he found that the number of people infected with coronavirus in any given region was not growing exponentially. He also correctly calculated the demise of China’s spread long ahead of most health experts.
And this weekend he told the Sunday Independent: “Ireland is done” with Covid.
The Stanford University professor said it was vital to make the distinction between cases among a generally healthy population and deaths among the vulnerable when deciding if the virus is a threat to a country.
He said: “I think people are very excited about finding cases but obviously we will be able to find coronavirus on people forever now because you can find other kinds of coronas and you can find influenza on people.
“The most important thing is how you define when it’s over and I think the only logical way to define it is when the ‘excess deaths’ get back to normal. And if you look at the whole of the European area for the last 10 weeks, there has been no excess deaths.
“That means that the deaths that are occurring are actually just... they are called ‘Covid deaths’ but they are deaths that would have occurred normally. And I am sure that happened in Ireland even before I said it was over.”
‘Excess deaths’ refers to the number of deaths over and above what is normally expected for that time of year.
Last month, analysis by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) found that excess deaths in Ireland from March to June were “substantially” less than the officially reported Covid-19 figures.
Hiqa said this could be due to the inclusion within official figures of people who were infected with coronavirus but whose cause of death may have been predominantly due to other factors.
The study found that, while there were 1,200 more deaths during that period, this was almost a third less than the 1,709 people originally recorded as having died from coronavirus.
Dr Levitt said: “I have a soft spot for Ireland and I keep an eye on it.”
He added: “Ireland is a well-managed country. I don’t see any massive new outbreak.
“I think the vulnerable people have, sadly, not made it. And it does seem that there is some level of immunity.
“The current picture is, and this is just a rough number, but about 80pc are actually resistant [to the virus] from the very beginning — they don’t get it easily.
“And the other 20pc, if we manage to get 15pc of them infected, then it is a safe range to be in.
“And in Ireland, if you just take the number of cases that you have had so far and multiply it by 10, you will find that it has affected about 15pc of the population.”
Despite the Government excluding popular holiday hotspots such as Spain and France from the Green List of safe destinations, Dr Levitt said: “That’s all politics. I am about to go travelling right now. We are flying to the UK and then we are going to fly to Portugal and have a vacation there.
“And I am in no way concerned. My sons live in the Algarve. So it will be beautiful and it will be great to see my six grandchildren and my wife will see her four grandchildren in Germany.”
Asked to recommend safe zones to visit, he said: “I would gladly go to Greece, Cyprus, Italy. Italy is very, very safe now... If a place completely escaped [Covid-19] the first time, then that’s probably not a great place to be.”
And asked what the Government should do if cases start to rise again, he said: “If there is an outbreak, then the smart thing to do would be to just let it go and make sure that you don’t overcrowd the hospitals.”
He said: “If I was in the Government, I would say the time now is to worry about the economy and tourism. And be sensible. When deaths start again, then you have to be careful.”
“But ultimately,” he said, “the virus is going to get to where it has to get to. All you can really do is to affect the speed it takes to get there and delay things.
“And, you know, if the delay is very expensive, like closing down the economy, then it is not a good idea.”