Scaling back test and trace ‘a grave mistake’
Professor says it was an error not to fully use only weapon against virus
SCALING back our testing and tracing capacity when Covid-19 numbers were lower to save public funds was a ‘grave mistake’, according to former Trinity College professor David McConnell.
At a recent press conference, HSE chief Paul Reid said it would have been ‘a waste of public funds’ to have our swabbing and tracing centres ‘lying idle’ while our case numbers were at 50 cases a week.
But Prof. McConnell, fellow emeritus in genetics at Trinity College, told the Mail on Sunday that as testing and tracing is the only weapon we have against Covid-19 in the absence of a vaccine, its costs will be ‘minuscule’ compared to not having the virus under control.
Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday, Prof. McConnell said of Mr Reid’s statement: ‘He does not believe that testing and tracing is cost effective.
‘This is a really important admission; they’re not prepared to spend the money on testing and tracing.
‘Testing and tracing is the way to bring the virus under control and the costs will be minuscule compared to the cost we’re bearing at the moment.
‘We’re borrowing vast sums of money in order to pay for various employment schemes. The head of the HSE is saying that cost is an issue with testing and tracing and that is a very grave mistake.’
Prof. McConnell said it’s clear Mr Reid is downplaying the role the
State plays in controlling the virus by recently suggesting the public health measures represent about 80% of what is needed by way of the key defence measures and that testing and tracing represents about 15-20%.
He said: ‘There’s a difference between public health measures which is what we do in order to counteract the virus but testing and tracing is something different – it’s what the Government services have to do on our behalf.
‘It’s a very different thing, and in my view it is Government policy that is causing the problem here and they are minimising their responsibility in the matter with respect to testing and tracing.’
The HSE has also recently taken the view that eliminating the virus isn’t realistic and that our country’s objective is to manage peaks and troughs in case numbers.
Prof. McConnell said: ‘This is quite an extraordinary admission that they’re not even going to try to eliminate the virus.
‘The idea that it’s not realistic is not backed up by evidence, it’s just a statement.
‘That’s a serious way of presenting to the public, Government policy without backing it up.
‘Our policy now accepts that we cannot eliminate Covid-19 and we are now focused on managing waves of infection into the foreseeable
‘It’ll be lockdown, relaxation, lockdown’
future. It will be lockdown, relaxation, lockdown, relaxation, ad infinitum. Some lockdowns will be local others quite wide. This will be hugely disruptive, especially as they relate to schools.’
Meanwhile, the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has said that it doesn’t want to return to another national lockdown as the country marks six months since the first coronavirus case was detected.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Brendan O’Connor show yesterday, Dr Cillian de Gascun, chairperson of Nphet’s Expert Advisory Group on Covid-19, said the team wants to avoid another national lockdown. So we have to be very careful about that,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to go back into a national lockdown if we don’t have to.’
He said strict ‘stay-at-home’ guidelines worked and they are a ‘tool in the armoury’
‘But I think the key thing to remember about the stay-at-home restrictions is that they did work. That’s why it is there, it’s a tool in the armoury that you never exclude definitively,’ he said.
Dr de Gascun said that nothing is zero risk but social activities have be done ‘differently now’.
‘Although we’re reopening society and getting back to the activities that we used to do, we have to do them in a different way.
‘There’s nothing that is zero-risk unfortunately, so we want people to get to school and have dinner with friends and have friends over to their house, but the thing is when they do those things we have to do them differently now.
‘It’s really like a change in behav
iour. An analogy we might use is the way we changed from plastic bags to bags for life.
‘This is a change that has to stay with us,’ he added.
Marking six months since the first Covid-19 case was detected, the head of the HSE said that Ireland has reached a ‘more difficult phase’ of the pandemic.
There have been a total of 1,777 people who died with Covid-19 in Ireland, many of them elderly people living in nursing homes. As the virus gripped the country earlier this year, care homes bore the brunt of its force with hundreds of lives lost.
Figures provided by the Department of Health show that Ireland recorded its highest death toll on April 20 when 77 people died from the virus. After health officials confirmed the first case on February 29, there have since been 28,578 people diagnosed with Covid-19, with 142 new cases yesterday.
Ireland hit its highest number of cases in one day when 936 were recorded on April 23.
HSE chief executive Paul Reid said it has been ‘a long six months’ since the first Covid-19 case confirmed in the State.
‘Much learning, hurt, sorrow, grieving and frustration.
‘But there’s also been inspirational responses from the public and healthcare workers,’ he wrote on Twitter.
As society eased out of lockdown restrictions, cases have been steadily rising since mid-July prompting acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn to issue warnings about the spike, particularly among young people.
While alarm bells were sounded over the jump in cases, there has been a fall-off in the number of people admitted to hospital and the number of deaths.
There are currently five people in Intensive Care Units and 30 people in hospital with the disease.
The Tánaiste Leo Varadkar commented on the figures yesterday, writing on Twitter: ‘The fact we have gone seven days without a reported death and low hospitalisation should give cause for hope.’
‘Low hospitalisation gives casuse for hope’