HOPES are rising that Irish people may be able to holiday within the EU this summer, a top doctor has said.
The World Health Organisation’s special envoy on Covid-19, Dr David Nabarro, has also said that vaccine certificates were a good idea.
Dr Nabarro said he is hopeful that there will be more opportunities for travel within the EU this summer but those anxious to book flights should wait until there is more clarity.
He said: “I’m hopeful that there will be more opportunities for travel within the European Union this summer that will go further than just bilateral arrangements between countries, I just can’t say for certain it will happen because there are quite a lot of variables.
“For example, are they new variants emerging and where are they emerging? And also, how well are countries organised with their testing, tracing and isolating systems?
“I’m very nervous about saying things about the future but I’m hopeful that there will be more opportunities for travel in the coming months than what we see right now. I’ve got my fingers crossed like everybody else really.
“I think for the time being, it will be bilateral discussions between countries and I’m not going to say there’s anything wrong with that.
“As a person working with the World Health Organisation, my hope is that we would be able to get protocols that apply to more than just two countries, but they’ll apply to the whole of Europe.
“And I think the European Union is going to be a very important venue for working that out.
“So just wait a little bit before making all of your holiday plans, people.
“I think that in a few weeks there will be much more clarity on what the arrangements for travel during the summer months are going to be.”
On vaccine certs, Dr Nabarro said everyone should possess one, so they are informed of what jab they have but we are not at a point that it could be used to get on an airplane.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Claire Byrne, he said: “I’d like certificates. I’d like them to say when the vaccine was given, how many doses, what vaccine it was, what batch number it was, where the manufacturer was. It gives that extra assurance... just in case you bump up against a particular variant.
“The big difficulty is then should that certificate serve as a passport for whether or not you can get on a plane to go from Dublin Airport to Athens airport, well I’m not quite personally ready to say that we’re at that point.”
Meanwhile, Ireland’s deputy chief medical officer has urged parents of schoolchildren not organise playdates and warned them not to congregate at school gates.
Dr Ronan Glynn said there is significant concern the partial reopening of schools will be taken as a signal that household mixing and mobility are acceptable.
The phased reopening of schools and childcare will see some pupils return to the classroom on Monday.
It comes as a further 29 people who had tested positive for coronavirus died.
Another 776 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were also announced yesterday.
As of February 23, 373,280 doses of the coronavirus vaccine had been administered in Ireland.
