Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said the fight against the Covid-19 virus would be a ‘long war’ that could go on for many years.
The Tánaiste spoke after a Taoiseach Micheal Martin announced a series of further restrictions that will come into effect on Monday as the government tries to stem the spread of the Omicron variant.
Mr Varadkar said he can’t “promise that next summer will be better or next Christmas will be better, but I can promise that we will do everything that we can to make sure it is.”
He added: “I think that when this pandemic started, we all hoped that it wouldn't go on for so long and a few of us, certainly I didn't think that it would go on for so long, but it has now gone on for two years, it could go on for several years, it is going to be a long war, and that’s why it does require us to consider how we are going to fight that long war.
“You might fight that differently than you would the short one, and it does mean things like the vaccine programme and the pillars the Taoiseach spoke about, it means the therapeutics that will be available in the spring, it means masks.
“It means paying more attention to things like ventilation, which we have been in recent months. It will mean scaling up our testing capacity, both lateral flow tests and PCR tests. It will mean continuing to increase our ICU and hospital capacity, and we’ve been doing that.
“It will mean trying to get our models a bit better as well and all of those things.”
The Tánaiste said that Ireland has been attempting to open the country slowly due to a fear of going backwards, which may be something that needs to change as the pandemic continues.
He hinted that restrictions may be introduced faster in future and then lifted once cases decrease again.
He said: “I think one thing as well that might mean is accepting that we may have to go backwards on occasion, and one thing that we’ve very much done in two years is tried to open up very slowly for fear of having to go backwards.”
