'Extremely stringent' measures needed to stop spread of Delta variant - Mills

(Above) Professor Kingston Mills.

“Extremely stringent travel measures” will have to be introduced for people coming from the UK mainland and Northern Ireland to prevent the Delta variant becoming the dominant Covid variant in Ireland this summer.

That's according to Mullingar native Kingston Mills, Professor of Experimental Immunology at Trinity College, who says that it will be “very difficult to stop” the Delta variant from spreading widely over the coming months.

Speaking on Newstalk at the weekend, Prof Mills said that the decrease in Covid cases among older people shows that the vaccines are working. However, the HSE is in a race against time to get people fully vaccinated before the numbers contracting the highly contagious Delta variant start to rise significantly. He also noted that different vaccines offer different levels of protection against the Delta variant.

"The Pfizer and Moderna are giving very good protection but that's not the same for the AstraZeneca vaccine, unfortunately, it's just not quite as good as the other two when it comes to dealing with the Delta variant."

At present, the Delta variant is accounting for 25 percent of all new Covid cases in Northern Ireland. It is “inevitable” that it will become the dominant variant in the north, Prof Mills says, which will make it “very difficult” to stop it spreading on the southern side of the border.

“I can't see anyway if the Delta variant becomes the dominant variant in Northern Ireland that we are going to stop it becoming the dominant variant in the border counties, at least, unless we put in place extremely stringent travel measures not only with the mainland of the UK but also with Northern Ireland,” he said.