At the start of June, the World Health Organisation warned that Ireland could be hit by a fourth wave of Covid-19 as people began to socialise again.
Now, NPHET has confirmed the worrying news that a fourth wave may be on the way.
The Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan has sent a letter to Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly warning that the Delta variant could cause a “significant” fourth wave of infection, possibly killing thousands of people.
The CMO said that the Delta variant is at least 55 per cent more transmissible than previous strains that sent Ireland into lockdown before.
He said that Delta is “rapidly becoming the dominant strain, and in our partially-vaccinated population the increased risk of onward transmission associated with this variant makes a significant fourth wave of infection likely.”
Dr Holohan has warned that cases will likely begin to rise slowly in July, but that we will see “exponential” cases in August and September.
NPHET has provided four possible scenarios to the Government, the worst being around 681,900 cases over the next three months.
The most optimistic prediction was for 81,000 cases.
Economist and data analyst David W Higgins took to Twitter to share his disappointed view on NPHET’s predictions.
The NPHET “central scenario” predicts no repeat of January’s huge hospitalisation spike.
“That gives you 10 weeks to put measures in place like vaccination check to prevent hospital overrun,” he explained.
“We could have opened. Very disappointing.”
He added that “the clock is now ticking fast for the government to find a solution.”
But Higgins also mentioned that NPHET modelling of future Covid-19 scenarios in Ireland were too pessimistic before, so they “could be again.”
Looking back at NPHET predictions made in March, "we should have 100-150 ICU patients right now."
"We only have 16," Higgins said.
Dr Holohan confirmed that the coming weeks are “very uncertain,” but insists that the Delta variant “poses a very substantial threat.”
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This isn’t the first warning from Dr Holohan, as he previously said we were in for a spike in case numbers after crowds gathering in public areas earlier this month.
At the time, he compared large crowds of people gathered in Dublin city centre to something seen before an All-Ireland final.
Dr David Nabarro, special envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organization (WHO) has previously warned Ireland of the highly contagious Delta variant spreading across the country.
"When people mix and are up close with each other, and perhaps not protecting themselves with face masks and so on, that's when the virus really starts moving around, and it's often followed with a big surge in cases,”
"And so, despite the fact that restrictions are being lifted, I'll say to people in Ireland, everywhere, because the virus has not gone away, continue to respect it.”
