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30th Jun 2021

Virologist Cillian De Gascun says Delta variant will “almost certainly” be dominant by July

Clara Kelly

“The key is to protect each other through established public health interventions”.

Virologist Cillian De Gascun has said that the Delta Covid-19 variant will “almost certainly” be dominant in Ireland by July.

Dr De Gascun said that the “dramatic increase” in Delta cases in the country over the last number of weeks will likely lead to the variant achieving dominance “much sooner” than anticipated.

“This dramatic increase in the proportion of Delta over the last two weeks will almost certainly lead to Delta dominance by the middle of July, with a consequent increase in case numbers, hospitalisations, and mortality in the following weeks,” he said on Tuesday night.

“However, in contrast to last summer, we now have very effective vaccines. The key is to protect each other through established public health interventions.”

Dr De Gascun said that the reason they are concerned about the variant is due to increased transmissibility, severity, and impact on vaccine effectiveness.

“As any new variant emerges, there are three main issues that we consider: transmissibility; infection severity; and impact on pre-existing immunity, reinfection risk, and vaccine effectiveness,” he added.

“Based on available evidence, the Delta variant appears to be between 40% and 60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant, which has been dominant in Ireland for the last five months.

“When compared with Alpha, Delta exhibits an increased growth rate, an increased secondary attack rate, increased household transmission, and laboratory evidence of increased replication in biological systems that model the human airway.”

He said that Delta is currently the dominant variant in the UK accounting for approximately 97% of cases. As a consequence, case numbers, hospitalisations, and deaths have increased in recent weeks.

Dr De Gascun added that the ECDC also predicted that Delta will be responsible for 90% of EU/EEA infections by the end of August, however, it is now likely this will happen “much sooner” in Ireland.

“In Ireland, it’s likely Delta will become dominant much sooner than that,” he continued.

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