DONEGAL people who have had their first Covid-19 vaccination has been urged to keep following the guidelines, amid concerns some may be letting their guard down too soon.
Dr Anthony Breslin, Director of Public Health for the North West, was responding to reports that some people who have received jabs in recent weeks had eased up on safety measures.
Dr Breslin said: “The strong message for anybody who has been vaccinated is to continue following the guidelines, to ensure they do not put themselves at risk while they are developing immunity and while levels are very high in the general community.
“We’ve received reports that people who have been vaccinated are letting their guard down a bit. They think that’s it – you get get a second dose and they’re free to do whatever they want.
“While the vaccine stops you getting sick it doesn’t mean that you don’t carry the virus. We need to keep our guard up until we have evidence that it stops transmission of the virus,” he said.
“We see that the vaccine is now being rolled out so it is really important that we continue to do all we can to protect our most vulnerable,” he added.
Dr Breslin said there was good news, with case numbers falling in Donegal after a rise over Christmas and early January.
There were 27 positive cases reported yesterday evening (up from 15 on Tuesday) but the Director of Public Health suggested it would be some time yet before we’re back into single digits.
“As numbers come down, that is welcome, but we expect it to be slow, particularly the significant impact that we’ve seen on hospitals and health care services, where things are stabilising from the data perspective, but still some way to go before numbers come down.
“Also, there’s enough people out there who just don’t want to follow the guidance and that will keep the figures up as well,” Dr Breslin said.
Last week, there were 158 staff unavailable for work in Letterkenny because they have the virus, are close contacts of a confirmed case, or are self-isolating.
“While the virus is rumbling on in Letterkenny hospital things are not as bad as they were before Christmas,” he said.
There have also been reports in recent days of Covid outbreaks in a number of nursing homes in Donegal.
“We have a couple of facilities with big numbers but we’ve not done bad compared to elsewhere in the country. It shows that the majority of staff have taken the message on board. In the vast majority of cases the number of contacts is very small – usually family or home contacts. There’s been very few contacts at work in the majority of cases,” he said.
Mr Breslin said that there were still cases presenting in Donegal from funerals and house parties.
“It’s still happening when it shouldn’t be. Unfortunately, we’ve seen in media reports last night the number of deaths and the age range of those deaths. If you get the virus I cannot predict what will happen to you,” he said.
On Tuesday, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre was notified of 101 additional deaths related to Covid-19. 83 of these deaths occurred in January. 18 occurred in February. The median age of those who died is 85 years and the age range is 19-103 years.
“I can’t see the Government letting us out of lockdown until they’re happy, nationally, with how the picture is going,” he admitted.
“It’s already been clearly shown that when people adhere to the guidelines things improve and we saw before Christmas, when the schools were open, that we didn’t have too many problems because they all followed the guidelines.
“We’re moving in the right direction but we would like to stay there. Even if you’ve been vaccinated, please maintain wearing a face mask, social distancing and washing your hands.
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