Taoiseach Michéal Martin has said that he “can’t be definitive” that the country won’t experience a fourth wave of covid-19 this winter and go into lockdown again as a result.
Speaking on The Tonight Show on Virgin Media, the Taoiseach was asked: “Are you suggesting that you would be confident that, once the vaccination programme gets to a certain point, that next winter we’re not going to have a fourth wave and have to go into lockdown again?”
“I can never be definitive about that in terms of how this pandemic evolves,” said Martin.
The Taoiseach asserted that he doesn’t believe the pandemic or lockdown is going to end “with a big bang”, implying it would be more gradual, and adding that and that the European Commission is currently looking into ordering large batches of vaccines to inoculate teenagers and children.
“It might be interesting to note that the president of the [European] Commission was in touch with me over a fortnight ago, and they look forward to a situation where we will have a faster readjustment of vaccines,” the Taoiseach said.
“These vaccines [will] deal with any emerging variants in the future,” he added.
“This is the next phase, so they are ordering millions of more vaccines for 2022 and 2023. So what I see evolving is a more advanced sort of settled pattern of dealing with this pandemic, it won’t end with one big bang.”