Infectious diseases expert Professor Sam McConkey has called on the Government to carefully monitor what is happening in the UK and Denmark with the Omicron variant.
“We have to learn from our neighbours to slow it down, if the peak was delayed for a week or two we could get more people vaccinated. If spread out over three months that would make it easier for hospitals and ICU to cope,” he told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny show.
London and Denmark were two weeks ahead of Ireland in dealing with Omicron, he said. “If they are starting to see lots of deaths and hospitalisations and ICU cases then we need to jump before that happens here."
Prof McConkey also warned that essential businesses including hospitality and retail were going to face 20 percent to 30 percent shortages of workers in January and February as the variant hits the “working age group”.
This was in response to comments by the Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan yesterday about the spike in cases in the 16 to 34 years old age group.
Essential services
“The working age group are going to get a lot of Omicron over the next few days and weeks, so all businesses, essential services need to plan for 20 or 30 percent of their workforce out with symptoms or out caring for sick children or vulnerable family members. There will be a workers shortage - we can prepare for that by having people on standby. We’ve already seen that in teaching.”
Essential businesses will need extra people on standby to get through January and February to keep functioning, he said.
Prof McConkey said he did not like “blaming” specific groups, he said the data should just be presented as it was.
“To me this Omicron wave, the fifth wave, is a different experience for us in Ireland than previous ones because instead of seeing lots of sick people in hospital - we've heard about it from the scientific testing done initially in South Africa and then in London and Denmark – the scientific evidence is telling us about this before it has really hit us in the face.
“We're fortunate we can watch what is happening in London and Denmark and that will help to guide us to make good decisions.”
Prof McConkey said that if the vaccination levels of 75,000 per day, as completed on Monday, could be maintained for 10 days that would be of great benefit.
“My view is we should decrease socialisation enough to allow most of us to get boosted, that will help us to deal with Omicron as best we can.”
