Covid-19 gone? Oh no it isn't — and there's a new variant in town
Picture: Smyth Receiving Pharmacist Breda Maxwell’s Her Bradley Stephen Vaccine Professor From
We all may have thought covid-19 was off the agenda as something to worry about this Christmas, but then the World Health Organization (WHO) piped up "oh no, it isn’t" with news of another new covid variant.
So how worried should we be?
The variant JN.1 was classified this week as a separate variant of interest by the WHO due to the speed at which it is spreading.
It had already been monitoring this as part of the BA.2.86 sublineages of Omicron.
However, it said the additional global health risk from this variant is low.
It did warn that this variant could increase illness rates with people staying indoors together more with winter weather having set in across the Northern Hemisphere.
Vaccines — including the bivalent vaccine the HSE has rolled out here — continue to protect against severe disease and death from JN.1 and other circulating variants, the WHO said.
This is not being advised, however the HSE and Chief Medical Officer Professor Breda Smyth have urged people to remember the basic respiratory health rules.
That means anyone with symptoms including runny nose, headache, cough, fever, should stay at home and avoid infecting vulnerable people including the elderly and young children.
This, along with vaccination, good ventilation at home and in social settings, could help limit the spread of other respiratory viruses including also the flu and RSV.
Not at all; covid vaccines are still available from pharmacies and GPs for free.
Ireland is using an adapted Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine as a booster dose. This is an mRNA vaccine.
Prof Smyth this week urged the public to add vaccination to the Christmas to-do list.
Hospitals are seeing increasing a rise in covid-related admissions, she said.
“I am concerned that despite the availability of covid and flu vaccines, uptake levels are still not high enough for covid overall and for flu in the younger age groups,” she said this week.
Yes. Unfortunately even a mild infection with any of the covid-19 variants has the potential to lead to long covid.
However more studies are indicating vaccination also reduces the chances of developing long covid.
A University of Iowa analysis, published recently in Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, estimated a vaccine effectiveness of 69% for three doses of covid vaccine against long covid, while two doses offer 37% efficacy.