Sir, – It is wonderful to see the success of the vaccination programme in our nursing homes and hospitals.
In choosing to vaccinate nursing home residents, frontline healthcare workers and our oldest citizens first, we aimed to protect the most vulnerable from severe disease and mortality caused by coronavirus.
The Government’s own data indicates that by protecting the oldest citizens first, we can prevent the majority of Covid hospitalisations long before we vaccinate all adults.
While 24.2 per cent of the 65-plus age group who tested positive for coronavirus have been hospitalised, only 4.4 per cent of 45-54 year-olds and 1.4 per cent of 18-24 year-olds, who tested positive, were hospitalised.
Thus, the purpose of our vaccination strategy is to de-couple cases of coronavirus detection from cases of severe disease and the attendant pressures they place on our health system. From this perspective, the daily case-count from the National Public Health Emergency Team is becoming less relevant as the vaccination programme proceeds.
The emphasis should now switch to hospital and ICU capacity. Fluctuating case numbers should no longer be used as a primary indicator for continuing blunt lockdown measures, many of which are having little impact on Covid but are having serious deleterious effects on our economy, our society and our wellbeing.
– Yours, etc,
HELEN GALLAGHER,
Rathgar,
Dublin 6.