No timeline for phasing out Nphet, says Holohan

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan has said that it is not yet possible to say when the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) will no longer be needed.

Nphet was convened in January 2020 and tasked with overseeing the public health response to the pandemic.

It has been the key advisory body to the Government since then on issues like lockdowns and re-openings of society and there have been instances of tensions between Nphet and Government ministers.

It was reported in early autumn that Nphet would be disbanded in October though the Government did not confirm this at the time.

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Since then there has been a surge in Covid-19 cases driven by the more highly infectious Delta variant and Nphet remains in place.

At Wednesday’s Nphet briefing for reporters Dr Holohan was asked about the report that it would be wound down and what his understanding was of the future of the advisory group.

Mr Holohan said that at the time of the reporting there was “some speculation in the same time period that we were going to see a demise of the virus as well and that unfortunately hasn’t proven to be the case”.

He added: “We find ourselves in a situation where we’re still challenged by the challenge that has been posed all the way through with this virus.

“It has evolved. It has changed. We have high levels of vaccination but we have the question about waning immunity.”

Mr Holohan also said: “We have right now a population that’s been dealing with restrictions of one kind or another for 18 months so the challenge is how you actually implement measures that can affect transmission in that environment.

“So in many ways it’s a more complicated situation now you could argue than many of the times that we faced over the course of the last 18-20 months.”

He said Nphet has been the mechanism for advising the Government and “unfortunately the virus and the pandemic hasn’t finished, hasn’t brought us to a point where we can step away from having those kinds of emergency related measures in place...

“When we get to a point in relation to this particular pandemic that we think that those risks have changed... then we’ll look at all of the governance arrangements.”

He said that at that point “we’ll step those back”.

He said his role and those of others on Nphet “will always continue” in relation to offering advice on infectious diseases “across the board”.

“But the Nphet structure which has guided us in terms of advice – from a whole range of different disciplines – we believe we still need and are not at this point in time able to identify the point at which that will be no longer necessary.”

As another 2,975 confirmed cases were reported on Wednesday, Dr Tony Holohan urged people to try to reduce their contacts by half to help contain the spread of the virus.