A leading immunology expert has said that Covid is currently so prevalent in society at the moment that it’s like ‘“walking through invisible confetti” - and that won’t be the end of the spread this year.
Immunologist Professor Liam Fanning at University College Cork predicted that we will likely see another surge in Covid this winter that could coincide with a nasty flu season.
However, he said the intensity of the virus may not be as severe as last year and that in years to come, it could be treated like a cold or a simple flu with people who are infected with the virus being able to come into the workplace.
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Speaking about the current summer wave, Professor Fanning said: “It’s almost like invisible confetti at this stage, it’s probably so prevalent.
“We are walking through it and yet we are managing not to collapse as a society.”
He continued: “The landscape ahead is unpredictable but we can make some presumption that we will have a wave between now and Christmas, or March time. It is quite likely."
The UCC professor said that it would be “crystal ball gazing” to predict exactly what that Christmas wave would be like but either way ICUs in Irish hospitals will be struggling.
“The one thing we can be certain of is that the ICU, with or without Covid, will be under pressure,” he said.
“It depends on whether we have a flu season that follows a [Covid surge], or they are coincidental, then we end up with quite a difficult situation of a nasty flu season and a wave of Covid.”
But Professor Fanning said that as Covid is constantly evolving, with new variants replacing the previous ones, it could predict how we deal with Covid in the future.
He said the current variant of the virus is “much more transmissible” but the disease profile is “lesser” than those prevalent in 2021.
“Maybe in another year or two’s time, depending on the disease trajectory, we may see people coming into work that have Covid,” he said.
“If you think pre-Covid pandemic, we all had colleagues and ourselves who came into work with the flu. Whereas now, after the pandemic experience there is an element of nervousness about it.
“But give it another year or two and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we have a situation that if you’re not coughing and sneezing, you will be allowed to come into work… followed with the caveat that you have to wear an FFP2 mask.”
In terms of any further restrictions, such as mask wearing or lockdowns, during a future Covid wave, Professor Fanning said it would be very challenging for the government to convince people that restrictions of any kind are needed.
And he said that while people will likely look to masks as the “first line of defence” but they may not actually make any difference at all.
“I find it difficult to see them bringing in geographical restrictions, I think we are more talking about ‘soft interventions’ but they need to be backed up with evidence," he said.
“So, for example, if you wear your FFP2 mask you protect yourself to the following degree, if you wear a surgical mask and it’s ill-fitting, you may as well be wearing nothing.”
He said any government campaign this time around will need to “give the data” to people to prove that masks are actually effective at preventing the spread of Covid.
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“I think the campaign around masks needs to be evidence-based rather than a panicked-type reactive situation,” he said.
“Not all masks are created equally and not all masks are worn equally either.
“The mask issue, while presented as a simplistic solution, is actually multi-layered with people not wearing them properly, or people wearing the same mask.
“The best protection people can do is stay up with their vaccines.”
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