Indoor dining in pubs and restaurants is due to reopen on July 5, but an increase in case numbers of the Delta variant has led to doubts on whether it will go ahead.
Last night, RTE's Prime Time viewers were left feeling encouraged after Professor Sam McConkey said he felt 'optimistic and hopeful' that the reopening will go ahead.
He said: “I think it’s certainly hopeful, let’s say that that will happen again a bit like we had last year when you had to give your contact details so it’s possible to do contact tracing and tables set apart and good ventilation and people sitting down.
"I think with some sensible restrictions, I’m optimistic and hopeful that will go ahead.”
Prof McConkey said it is inevitable that the Delta variant will become the dominant variant in Ireland, but that data from the UK looks reassuring.
He added: “We’re all looking at what’s happened in the UK. They have seen a dramatic increase in the Delta variant, as they're calling it. Large numbers of cases, more than 10,000.
“Where is that going to leave us? Inevitably it’s going to come here, we know it is here, and it inevitably transmits more than other viruses. So, it is going to spread and take over as the dominant virus here.
“The good news from the UK is that, and if we’re allowed to talk about sort of harsh numbers, about one to two per cent of people in the UK who get it end up in hospital and about one in 1000 mortality.
“That’s much much better than our first wave and second wave and third wave, and I think that’s because it’s happening in a much healthier younger population.
“The elderly are vaccinated, and the vulnerable are vaccinated, so I think it won’t be anything like we’ve had in the previous waves.”
Prof McConkey said that Ireland's vaccination rollout will be of huge benefit in combatting the Delta variant as over 3.7 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have now been administered.
He said: “The good news is that over the next number of weeks through June and July, a much bigger increase in vaccinated people will happen.
“So, we've now got access to supply large amounts of the Pfizer vaccine, and we have the capacity to administer that to large numbers of people."
Prof McConkey said his biggest worry is not the Delta variant, as data from the UK has shown that the variant is not very transmissible in vaccinated people.
However, he said Ireland must be cautious not to import other variants that can spread through vaccinated people.
He said: “My concern is not so much about the Delta variant in Ireland which will come and spread through a number of young people. It’s more this risk of importing new variants.
“There will be lots of other variants happening in Brazil, India, South America and lots of places where there is a lot of Covid happening.
“We really don’t want to import those in. If they can spread in vaccinated people, then that's truly a very bad variant to have circulating in Ireland.
“It’s clear that the Delta virus doesn’t spread well in vaccinated people from data from the UK, but we don’t want to import, in my view, we should try our absolute best to avoid importing a variant that could spread in vaccinated people because that would set up back to where we were last December.”
