Vivienne Clarke
Immunology expert Professor Paul Moynagh has warned that people who are not vaccinated are taking a risk and should be provided with more information.
“They’ve got a choice between the vaccine and the virus, if they take that risk, it’s a roll of the dice” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
The virus would have a much more serious impact on their health, he added.
Prof Moynagh said that the increased number of Covid cases in the last few days should not be a surprise as viruses are more easily spread in the autumn and winter and the Delta variant was highly contagious.
Breakthrough infections
There was also the issue of breakthrough infections, which were not a failure and were part of the normal immune response four to five months after the second dose which tended to wane.
“This is not a vaccine failure, it is a normal part of the immune response”.
The main problem was the 300,000 people who were not vaccinated, he said. “The message has to go out to them.”
Prof Moynagh also called for the use of rapid antigen testing at social events and portable filtration systems rather than a single focus on people’s behaviour.
More attention should be paid to the numbers being hospitalised and in ICU than the number of cases, he said as the vaccination programme meant that many who tested positive did not experience symptoms or serious illness.
“The vaccine is still doing a very good job.”
