A record surge in Covid-19 cases in Ireland was due to increased social mixing over the Christmas period and is not caused by a new variant from Britain, the World Health Organisation has said.
As the Irish Times reports, emergencies chief Mike Ryan told reporters he had spoken to chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan on Monday to discuss the situation, which has seen Ireland become the world’s worst pandemic hotspot.
“My own country in Ireland . . . has suffered one of the most acute increases in disease incidence of any country in the world,” the Mayo man said.
“And not due to the variant let me add, but due to increased social mixing and reduction of physical distancing,” he said. “New variant strains . . . have not been the driver of new transmission.”
Curbing the spread
Dr Ryan added that the latest figures indicated that new restrictions were already working to curb the spread of the virus.
“I was talking to my colleague Tony Holohan the chief medical officer in Ireland earlier and we were almost saying this is like adding a substitution in the second half of a football game,” Dr Ryan said.
“It doesn’t change the rules of the game, it doesn’t change what you do, but it gives the virus some new energy, some new impetus. It adds to the challenge you face because the opposition is bringing some new players to the field,” he said.
“It doesn’t change what we need to do to win. It just changes the strength of the opponent and in that sense we have to take from that that we have to redouble our efforts.”
WHO infectious disease epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said countries such as Ireland had seen “near vertical” exponential growth in cases due to mixing over Christmas and New Year.
