The mica protest in Dublin last month in which thousands of residents of homes built with defective blocks took to the streets may have contributed to the increase in the Delta variant in Co Donegal, a leading member of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has said.
r Denis McCauley, the chairman of IMO’s GP committee, believes the crowds that descended on the capital from Inishowen and Carndonagh “can’t but have had an effect” on rising cases in the northwest in the past two weeks, and suggested it may be “one of a number of factors”.
Recent figures showed Buncrana had a 14-day incidence rate of 608.1 per 100,000 while Carndonagh had the third-highest rate of infection at 489.3.
“Did it [the protest] have an impact? Of course it did. Did it have much of an impact? I have no idea. I can only imagine that it did,” said the Ballybofey-based GP. “It probably brought things forward by a week or so. It was only inevitable that it would happen anyway.”
Infections have been highest in the 19 to 24 age group in the area, but Dr McCauley believes much of that is down to the “cross-Border effect”, given that Inishowen in the Republic and Derry in the North is “one economic, social area”.
“It’s a combination of what happens in Derry will happen in Buncrana. When there’s a pull for young people to go into Derry to socialise, that’s going to increase the spread of the virus,” he said.
“It’s a problem for all in Northern Ireland: it’s gone up by a factor of nearly six in the last three weeks. The incidents have all doubled. When Covid restrictions differ on either side of the Border, there are always consequences.”
Dr McCauley said the Delta variant is “spreading among the young people and will become the dominant variant” now that it makes up 70pc of the positive cases in the Republic.
“The only question will be: how will the numbers react? If the Delta variant was spreading to the same extent as it is in Northern Ireland, we could have 2,000 cases a day here,” he said.
“There is an increase in north Donegal, there is an increase in Northern Ireland, there will be an increase throughout the rest of Ireland.
2But that will be dictated by the hospitality decisions and international travel decisions.”
Dr McCauley said there will be “morbidity and mortality” associated with the increase, “but we don’t expect it to be too high and will be monitoring the situation across the Border”.
“Once we see the actual impact in Northern Ireland in the next week or 10 days, that will dictate the ultimate emotion that we have. Could it be relief? Could it be concern? Or could it be grave worry? All of those emotions are potentially possible.”
Dr Anthony Breslin, director of public health in the north-west, believes the “artificial construct” that is the Border “has allowed Covid to spread” and said healthcare officials such as him will be watching how the situation evolves in the coming weeks.
“It’s about trying to identify why we are having these outbreaks. Obviously, it’s late when you have an outbreak, but you try to stop it getting bigger.
“At the moment, all parts of the country, not just north-west Donegal, are watching residential and nursing homes like hawks. We don’t want any outbreaks there.”
Over the Border in Northern Ireland, the rate of infection in Derry and Strabane last week was the highest at the very moment the rate in Buncrana and Carndonagh was the highest in the Republic.
Derry-based GP Dr Tom Black, the chairman of the British Medical Assocation in Northern Ireland, said he expects a surge in cases in the region over the next month.
“There has been a 60pc increase in infections in the past week — and three-quarters of those are the Delta variant, which is very transmissible,” he said.
“We expect to see a continuing increase in infections over the next few weeks — probably peaking around the middle or end of August — and expect to see an increase in hospitalisations.”
Around 80pc of people in Northern Ireland have received their first vaccination, with more than 60pc receiving two jabs. All elderly and clinically vulnerable people have been fully vaccinated.
At one point last week there were 46 people in Northern Ireland’s hospitals with Covid-19 and four in intensive care, compared with 800 in hospitals and 74 in intensive care in January.
Two hospitals in Derry have halted visits after an increase in the number of patients with Covid-19 being admitted in the area.
More than a third of the coronavirus-positive patients in Northern Ireland’s hospitals are on wards in the Western Health and Social Care Trust.
The trust confirmed last week that 27 elective procedures were cancelled because of a surge in admissions.
“The vaccine is holding up well against the Delta variant, but it’s breaking through,” says Dr Black.
Northern Ireland’s First and Deputy First Ministers Paul Givan and Michelle O’Neill are to write to Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, calling for more cooperation between the two jurisdictions, a year-and-a-half since the pandemic began.
In a joint statement following a meeting of the Northern Ireland Executive, Mr Givan and Ms O’Neill said they would contact the Irish Government to “resolve any anomalies” over international travel arrangements.
“We are aware that people here depart and arrive through airports based across the island, and for public safety and clear messaging it would be beneficial to all to have cooperation and consistency,” they said.
Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Ms O’Neill said the Executive is “making steady, cautious progress”, but the Delta variant is “now the dominant variant in the North and is spreading faster and cases are rising”.
She said it will be mid-July “before we understand the relationship between the positive cases, the hospitalisations and the deaths”.
“In terms of cross-Border cooperation, it hasn’t been good the whole way through. It has been really frustrating, to be honest. We had an advantage of fighting the pandemic as an island and that hasn’t been the case from the beginning,” she added.
“There’s a good working relationship between the two chief medical officers [Dr Tony Holohan and Dr Michael McBride], but there’s been no engagement at a political level and that has been really regrettable.”