Stephen Donnelly has warned the country is not out of the woods yet on Covid as we could be hit with “more variants of concern” in the coming months.
The Minister for Health also said that the Government is looking at an “annual vaccination regimen” for Covid like the jabs programme we already have for the flu.
He said this is being looked at by his department officials and he has tasked NIAC (National Immunisation Advisory Council) to prepare a report.
The comments from the Minister come as the country emerges from the first weekend of being allowed back at the bar for a pint after almost all Covid restrictions were removed on Saturday.
The massive reopening of society after 22 months of Covid hell will also see thousands of workers start to head back to the office for the first time in nearly two years for many.
Sporting venues were packed again over the weekend, with inter-county GAA, club games and rugby provincial teams all seeing a massive surge in fans back in the stands.
Mr Donnelly said: “The infectious disease experts community that I’m speaking to, and the virologists, say, look, we could have more variants of concern.
“We could have mutations of Omicron, that may be more severe, so obviously we have to keep an eye on that.
“But certainly this wave of Omicron, we look to be well through that, the numbers are right down.
“So, for me this weekend is a time to give thanks, for me as Minister for Health to give thanks to our extraordinary healthcare community right ‘round the country.
“But critically as well, to every person in this country who stepped up and got vaccinated and got boosted... the reason we are in this situation this weekend is because as a nation we acted together.”
Mr Donnelly spoke about the likelihood of people getting a Covid jab every year.
He said: “What we did was we agreed with the authorisation at an EU level of the development of exactly these (further vaccines), as to exactly what we might do with them, it depends on the clinical trials, it depends on the clinical trials and the clinical assessment by the EMA (European Medicines Agency) and NIAC.
“Though encouragingly, I am talking to people within virology who are saying that there could be vaccines coming that could give longer term immunity, so say, a year, and as these technologies become more apparent we can start looking, for example, at annual vaccination regimens.”
The Minister was speaking on RTE’s This Week programme on Sunday afternoon.
