Experts condemn ‘defeatist’ borders attitude
NPHET and the Government’s approach to controlling cases of Covid coming into the country is a ‘defeatist and can’t-do attitude’, say health experts.
UCC professor and AXA Research Chair in Applied Pathogen Ecology Gerry Killeen said he was ‘depressed and furious’ to see comments from
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony
Holohan that said that Ireland’s position in Europe would mean we ‘could not realistically seal our borders and stop movement of people’.
Dr Holohan also said the appeal of a Zero-Covid strategy would be that we could return to a level of normality after declaring ourselves Covid-free. However, he said: ‘We’d have to be in a position as a country to be very rapidly able to identify cases and to put in rapid control measures for a very responsive system would be a challenge for us.’
Prof. Killeen said: ‘We’re seeing other countries who have managed to return a level of normality but we’re still being told it’s impossible for us to do it. This is being done in places with huge land borders, like Vietnam.’
He said: ‘Australia did all the right things because their public health doctors are resourced, they’re not depressed, they’re not on the verge of a strike. They’re allowed to operate their own teams, they have consultant status so they don’t have to ask anybody to make quick decisions.’
Infectious disease consultant and RCSI Head of the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine Dr Sam McConkey told the MoS he would be in favour of a full 14-day hotel quarantine and two PCR tests for anyone coming here. He said he didn’t agree with Dr Holohan’s view that we would not be in a position to close our border to visitors. He said: ‘We can and should build up the capacity in Ireland to reliably detect and control new outbreaks of Covid-19 here.’
Professor of Molecular Virology at Queen’s University Belfast Dr Ultan Power told the MoS he has been calling for strict border controls from the beginning: ‘I have been calling for this since very early in the pandemic.
‘Strict border controls, both North and South, is the only way to stop new introductions of the virus onto the island,’ he said.