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The revised Government policy to prioritise vaccines based on age rather than by profession is “simple” and will mean “we can open up the country quicker”, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said.
“All you need is proof or date of birth. When you do it by profession, it can get very complicated within every profession.”
The Government has moved, following public health advice, from using both profession and age as priority markers. The over 70s and vulnerable groups, including healthcare workers and those with underlying conditions aged 16-69, have also been prioritised.
The new system should help speed up the rollout, the World Health Organisation’s special envoy on Covid-19, Dr David Nabarro has said.
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Mr Varadkar similarly defended the strategy and said in the Dáil “there are people who deal with the public a lot, and people who are largely based in an office, and trying to distinguish between them in the health sector, didn’t prove to be possible on all occasions”.
Opposition parties have criticised the change which provoked outrage from unions representing teachers, gardaí and other workers because of a lack of consultation.
But Mr Varadkar told Social Democrats joint leader Catherine Murphy: “It is to the advantage of all of us because if we vaccinate the most vulnerable people first, which means people in their 50s and 60s ahead of people in their 30s and 40s, we can open up the country quicker.”
Earlier, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly confirmed in the Dáil the issue was discussed at official level last week.
During a question and answer session on the vaccine rollout programme, Mr Donnelly said the memo was discussed by Cabinet sub-committee the night before Tuesday’s presentation to Cabinet.
But he told Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane “there was discussion at official level the previous week as well”. Mr Cullinane said the change was a “fundamental shift” that “screams at people that this [programme] is shambolic and chaotic”.
The Minister insisted, however, that “the evidence from the Niac (National Immunisation Advisory Committee) about the risk of severe outcomes based on age is clear and it is very stark”.
Mr Donnelly said those aged 50-54 years old were 15 times more likely to die of Covid-19 than those aged 18-34, and the only sector “showing a significant increase in risk from Covid is healthcare”.
He said someone aged 50-54 “is three times more likely to be hospitalised, 10 times more likely to end up in intensive care and 15 times more likely to die from Covid” than someone aged 20-24.
Fine Gael party chairman Richard Bruton said the change was “absolutely justified but this should not have been sprung on the people the way it was. Mr Bruton said “the evidence has been available for a long time and the way it was dealt with is unacceptable”.
On Wednesday, Minister for Education Norma Foley told the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party the rationale for changing the vaccine priority list must be explained.
Picking up on this disclosure, Ms Murphy said “the last time I looked, Minister for Education Norma Foley was a member of Cabinet”.
The Social Democrats TD said there had been strong expectations that the education sector would be vaccinated early but Ms Foley was looking for Niac to explain a significant change in the vaccine rollover.
“She is one of the decision makers, and she requires clarification from Niac for a decision she herself took,” said Ms Murphy. “Who is in charge?” she asked.
Global view
Dr Nabarro said he did not like commenting on national policy and had not spoken with the Irish Government but said the revised system made sense to him as a public health representative as he did not like to see vaccines "sitting around in stores", he would prefer to see it in people's arms where it could save lives.
Any country that had supplies of vaccine should be in a "huge rush" to get them used, he told Newstalk Radio.
"You don't want to be sitting on it. You don't want to have a slow roll out so that is why I am going to say to everybody, do what you can to get the vaccines out. I am also saying, make sure you share the vaccines across all the countries where they are needed – but that is really difficult to say at the moment in Europe, people are really, really keen to get vaccines for their own populations."
Irish-born microbiologist Professor James McInerney has said that using an age-based vaccination scheme was “slightly better” than one based on occupation and it is also faster.
Prof McInerney, who is head of the School of Life Sciences at Nottingham University, told RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland that there were arguments in favour of both systems, but that the age-based scheme could be rolled out faster as had been done in the UK.
“Ultimately it is a decision for each country or territory.”
Crucial time
Prof McInerney added that this was a crucial time throughout Europe where Covid-19 case numbers were rising. Countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Ukraine were experiencing "real problems", he said.
Right now was the time to look at individual activity as the B117 variant could almost be described as a completely different virus given it is so virulent and transmissible, he said. The “old lockdown” measures that had worked last year to reduce numbers would not work as well this time and it would be hard to drive down numbers.
There was a 50 per cent higher possibility of hospitalisation because of B117 and double the possibility of ending up in ICU, he warned.
“I hear calls for an ease to restrictions everywhere,” he said. “This is a crucial time right now.”
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar was on Wednesday night forced to defend the change after Fine Gael TD John Paul Phelan said the Government had “scrapped the list” of people who expected to be vaccinated sooner, such as teachers and gardaí. While Mr Varadkar said the list of workers and professions had never been fully defined, he also said there should have been greater consultation with unions and stakeholders.
The Irish Times reported on Wednesday that the changes were discussed last week by a powerful group of officials. The secretaries general of the departments of Justice, Education and Children – whose Ministers raised concerns about the move at Cabinet – all have attended recent meetings of the senior officials’ group.
Senior coalition sources said the changes were discussed at the Cabinet subcommittee on Monday evening, but only briefly.