Long Covid from virulent variant is a real threat to young people

THE main health impact from the most infectious form of the virus to emerge so far may not be hospitalisations, deaths and huge admissions to Intensive Care Units, but in young people becoming ill with ‘Long Covid’, leading experts warned last night.

The warning comes as the Government rushes to get all adults vaccinated before the end of next month on the back of a booming vaccination programme.

Infectious disease expert and eminent pathogen researcher at University College Cork, Professor Gerard Killeen, told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘What Delta changes is it doesn’t change whose vulnerable with and without vaccination. But it does change the risk that the vulnerable people will be exposed and what most people don’t get is that most people think January was as bad as it gets and it’s not.

‘What we only got was just a taste of what a full-blown epidemic wave would have been. The people I worry about are first of all the people who were always vulnerable. If you were immune-compromised before the vaccine the vaccine is not going to do so much for you [those with underlying health conditions, transplant recipients, some people who have had cancer treatment, people with HIV].

‘What people need to keep their eye on is the fact that to protect the vulnerable it’s really down to the rest of us. It’s about what we do, it’s not just all about vaccines.

‘The vaccine will take time and with Delta we don’t have that time. I really worry about the vulnerability of people in their 20s, kids and young parents, to disease manifestations that may not be extreme but take a long time to shake them off if you ever do.’

Stressing the need to continue to wear masks and limit social contacts, Prof Killeen added: ‘A million people in the UK have been badly affected [with long Covid] and I’m very worried about young people. I worry about a huge longterm disease burden that will slow down society as a whole. People are focusing on hospitalisations and deaths. I think the bigger issue is long-term disability.

‘People are still talking about indoor dining and summer holidays. I just think they just don’t get it that we have bigger problems.’

Meanwhile, epidemiologist and public health specialist Professor Anthony Staines from Dublin City University agrees the Delta variant will exact the heaviest toll among young adults and the medically vulnerable.

Prof Staines told the MoS: ‘There’s no real doubt that it spreads much faster and in Australia, where they have very detailed information on exactly how people get infected, there are a number of cases of people being infected after a really trivial contact… walking past somebody else not huddled at a table for two hours but literally walking past.’

He added: ‘Anyone who is unvaccinated is at very high risk of getting it. The case numbers are very high in the 19- to 24-year-olds. The people most at risk are the people who were a high risk and are now vaccinated.

‘Because there is more Delta around and because it is more infectious their risk of getting it has gone up a bit. So their overall risk of getting sick is much lower than it was before they were vaccinated. But they are still the main group at high risk of getting seriously ill from Covid.’

On Tuesday, the Government confirmed it would not proceed with its plans to allow pubs, restaurants and cafés, to serve customers indoors from tomorrow.

The decision was based on advice given by the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) who claimed that, in the worst-case scenario, as many as 2,000 people could die between now and the end of August if nothing was done to stall the Delta variant’s spread.

The panel of medical experts also recommended that indoor dining not be allowed unless customers were issued with passes showing they were vaccinated or had recovered from Covid.

In its submission to Government, NPHET outlined what would unfold in five different scenarios ranging from the worst case to the most optimistic outcome.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin admitted he and his cabinet colleagues based their decision on the most pessimistic outcome predicted by NPHET.

It later emerged the decision by the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) allowing the AstraZeneca vaccine and the one-shot Janssen to be given to younger people under the age of 40 was not built into the models on which NPHET made its recommendations.

Both of these vaccines have been linked to rare blood clots in younger people

and, as a result,

‘To protect vulnerable, it’s down to rest of us’

NIAC had until last week recommended they not be given to those aged in their 20s and 30s.

Meanwhile, in a bid to defend how they made their 11th-hour decision not to proceed with indoor dining, Government figures insisted they were shocked by NPHET presenting them with five scenarios.

However, according to one expert familiar with the Government’s Covid strategy and the modelling results presented to the Cabinet last week, outlining five different possibilities is the norm.

But having examined the figures in detail, the expert said NPHET’s grimmest predictions were based on ‘off the wall assumptions’ that may never happen.

The source said NPHET’s worstcase modelling does not take into account vaccinations or the fact that people who are infected recover.

But he indicated that the reason they are ‘scaring the bejaysus out of people’ is because they know they have to get 20- to 30-year-olds vaccinated fast.

‘It’s the way it works and the NPHET modelling is not flawed. But they are refusing to publish the assumptions of the model and the reason they are doing that I imagine is because if they made them public people would go absolutely ballistic. They know that as well. But that’s part of the modelling process to put in the extremes even though you know they are not likely valid.

‘Micheál Martin said they went with the worst-case scenario and the reason they’d do that is to buy time to get everybody vaccinated.’

Meanwhile, it has emerged that among the Scottish soccer fans who travelled to London for the Scotland England Euros clash there has been a 15% infection rate of the Delta variant.

And last week Scotland reported its highest daily number of Covid-19 cases with as many as 3,887 daily cases recorded.

Nevertheless, indoor dining is still allowed and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said the country will continue to ease more Covid restrictions on July 19, with a full re-opening due on August 9 as long as there is not a dramatic increase in hospitalisations and deaths from Covid and the Delta variant.

The source familiar with the Irish Government’s strategy said that what unfolds during the next two weeks in Scotland will ultimately determine what will happen here.

The expert said: ‘The worst-case scenario is 200,000 cases in the next three months but the question is will that translate into deaths?

‘I find that hard to believe because if that translates into 2,000 deaths then why do we bother vaccinating when we’re told the vaccine protects 97% of the people from dying. These figures don’t add up.

‘We know with the vaccine that the death rate probably goes below one in 10,000 where it used to be one in a 100.

‘So if they are predicting 2,000 deaths in a worst-case scenario that would be two million being infected over the next 10 weeks.

‘That’s not going to happen because 60% will be vaccinated by then and so we are not going to have two million cases and 2,000 deaths.’

‘It’s part of modelling to put in extremes ’