If Ireland’s

strategy to fight Covid doesn’t change, we will face four more ‘waves’ of the virus until a vaccine is found, according to Professor Anthony Staines.

The DCU health systems expert has said the policy of dealing with clusters with localised lockdowns will not eliminate the virus, which is the aim of he and his colleagues in the Zero Covid group.

‘We would hope that there will be a vaccine available in the middle of next year, there almost certainly won’t be one sooner and it might be a lot later. We are in the second wave at the minute, the third wave will come at the end of September/October, fourth wave Christmas, fifth wave in late February or early March, sixth wave April or May,’ he said, adding that if we keep doing what we are doing without fully eliminating the disease, the cases will simply rise again.

He added that older people were more likely to be staying within their own bubbles, but that younger people circulating in the community and workplaces would eventually start to spread it to older people again.

Part of the group’s plan to completely eliminate the virus involved designating travel ‘green zones’ which have had no new cases for several weeks, along with a more aggressive test and trace system.

Without a change in policy, however, we will be in for several more waves this winter.