Full reopening ‘could weak en rollout’
THE deputy chief medical officer and the assistant secretary general in the Department of Health warned in recent weeks that a full reopening of Irish restaurants and pubs could jeopardise Ireland’s vaccination programme.
The warnings are contained in affidavits filed to the High Court on July 5 in response to a case taken by the Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI) and three restaurants, Boxty House, Esquires Coffee House and Sarsfield Tavern.
The case was initiated following the Government’s decision to postpone indoor re-opening in pubs and restaurants, while allowing dining to take place inside hotels.
But it was taken before the National Public Health Emergency Team advised that indoor hospitality could reopen if the Government introduced a system that would verify whether customers were vaccinated or had immunity status, which resulted in the development of the vaccine ID.
On the day the affidavits were lodged, Ireland recorded 365 new coronavirus cases.
Yesterday, 1,377 new infections were diagnosed, driven by the recent surge in occurrences of the Delta variant.
The case was initially adjourned until July 22, to give the Health Minister’s legal team more time to file affidavits, in expectation of the lifting of current regulations.
In its affidavit, RAI chief executive Adrian Cummins said its members have been greatly disadvantaged and are incurring major economic loss due to irrational regulations. The RAI also claimed the current regulations are, as they apply to restaurant and dining services since June 2, ‘irrational, discriminatory, disproportionate, impossible to implement, lacing in certainty and lacking in substantive fairness’.
Deputy chief medical officer Colette Bonner said: ‘Scenes from other countries of refrigerated trucks holding bodies awaiting burials are reflective of what can happen when adequate measures are not taken.’
She said State policy was informed by Ireland’s postChristmas surge ‘that exceeded any country in the world’.
In her affidavit, Ms Bonner said: ‘Any significant deterioration in the public health could significantly undermine the capacity of the health and wider
public service to resource and maintain rollout of the vaccine programme.’
She warned of ‘an increase in hospitalisations and deaths potentially reaching the same level as the autumn of 2020’.
She added: ‘I disagree with the suggestion that because one part of the hospitality sector could open, all of it could be safely reopened.
Colm Desmond, assistant secretary general at the Department of Health, said in a separate affidavit, ‘If levels of Covid-19 infection rise beyond manageable numbers, the State would face an extreme emergency’.
This means all decisions are informed by ‘immediate exceptional and manifest risk to human life and to human health’, he added.
Separately, on July 1, Dr Megan Davies Wykes from the University of Cambridge, said aerosol transmission ‘is likely to be particularly significant where spaces are crowded, poorly ventilated and where there is loud speaking or singing’.
Dr Wykes said restaurants posed a higher risk due to the potential for ‘loud speaking, lack of facemasks, the long time spent in the venue and the fixed position of occupants’.
The department said it does not comment on ongoing legal cases when contacted by the MoS.