Covid booster: Wait period after infection reduced to three months as 5,279 new cases reported

The wait period between recovering from Covid-19 and receiving a booster vaccine has been shortened to three months.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has accepted the National Immunisation Advisory Committee’s (Niac) recommendations that the interval between the primary vaccine series and booster dose for those who have had a breakthrough infection be reduced to three months.

Prior to this, the interval was six months.

Mr Donnelly said the emergence of Omicron variant “prompted this amendment”, particularly concerns over the “risk of re-infection which is estimated to be approximately five-fold higher with Omicron compared to the Delta strain”.

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Booster doses for under-40s not expected until after Christmas

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The HSE administered 76,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines on Monday, the majority of which were booster doses.

A further 5,279 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed on Tuesday, with 443 patients in hospital with this virus, of whom 102 are in intensive care.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan confirmed the Omicron variant now accounts for about two thirds of confirmed cases in Ireland.

He said public health teams are reporting a higher level of infection among household close contacts as a result of Omicron infection.

One positive test among a household means there is “significant chance that others are already infected, even if not yet testing positive”, Dr Holohan said.

He once again urged young people to make sacrifices over the Christmas period in order to reduce their contacts and called on parents, guardians and extended family and frieds to support them with this.

“This group have made significant sacrifices in order to protect loved ones and I would like to thank them for that. It is important now that we continue to encourage and support each other to make sacrifices, take responsible actions and continue to follow the public health advice.

“This week, try and only meet with the people with whom you will spend Christmas Day. Keep your contacts as low as possible in order to protect those around you,” Dr Holohan said.

Modelling from the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) suggested there could be between 8,000 and 20,000 new cases of coronavirus a day, depending on the level of social mixing over Christmas.

An optimistic model suggested that Covid-19 hospital numbers could peak at between 650 and 1,000 people in early January with between 150 and 250 people requiring critical care. Under a pessimistic scenario, more than 2,000 people could be hospitalised, including more than 200 people in hospital intensive care units (ICUs).

Rising infections

The first signs of the impact of the Omicron variant have emerged with infection rising rapidly among younger people in the last week, one of the State’s top public health officials has said.

Prof Philip Nolan, who chairs the epidemiological modelling group advising Nphet, said figures from the past seven days – and more specifically the weekend – were the “first real sign of the impact of Omicron”.

Incidence in those aged 19-34 has increased by between 50 and 70 per cent in the course of the last seven days, he said, “increasing sharply over the weekend [while] test positivity in this age group exceeds 20 per cent”.

Prof Nolan said this is to some degree offset by booster vaccination reducing incidence in those aged 65 and older, but is nonetheless a “signal of the surge of disease to come, which is likely to be concentrated in younger adults in the first instance”. Incidence in Dublin is also growing more rapidly than in the rest of the country, with Omicron again suspected as driving the growth.

Elsewhere, it is understood booster vaccines will not be given to the under-40s until after Christmas with the extended programme facing complications due to multiple rollouts to three groups.

Boosters for people in their 30s are due to be administered next month at the same time that non-priority children aged between five and 11 are vaccinated with first doses and those aged between 16 and 29 years, who received the single-dose Janssen vaccine, get their booster jabs.

This will put the vaccination programme under pressure in January, managing the mass rollout of first-dose vaccines to children alongside the mass rollout of boosters for two large groups.

At a meeting with the live events sector organised by Minister for Culture Catherine Martin on Monday, Dr Holohan warned that the situation is likely to get worse in January and it promises to be a difficult month for the health sector and “societally”.

Earlier, the Taoiseach said the Government could not take the risk of “letting Omicron rip” given the lack of data on the variant.

Further restrictions could be avoided if everyone stuck with the current measures, he told Newstalk Breakfast.

Ireland had “a very good chance” of managing the Omicron variant if levels of socialisation were reduced by between 20 per cent and 30 per cent, combined with the new restrictions and the booster campaign, he said.

Mr Martin said what had happened last Christmas did weigh on him, referring to the wave of cases in January. “We know what happened, a new variant can wreak havoc. We got through it in the end, but with a heavy price. What we don’t know about Omicron is the level of severity, we’d like to see some more data.

“We cannot take the risk with the population, in terms of just letting it rip and hope for the best. That would not be the right thing to do.”