“This will become the dominant variant throughout Europe throughout July and August”
There have been 220 confirmed cases of the Delta variant of Covid-19 in Ireland, according to the HSE.
During the health service’s briefing on Thursday, its Chief Clinical Officer Dr Colm Henry said there was “no doubt” Delta will become the dominant variant throughout Europe over the next two months.
He said: “Our own experience – we’re at 220 cases so far based on whole genomic sequencing.
“But based on that s-gene analysis – it’s a proxy for Delta, many of which turn out to be Delta – we’re at about half [55%] of our cases now.”
Henry said this “predicts very well that we’re going to see them transform into Delta on whole genomic sequencing.”
The median age of Delta cases was 31 years of age, with 50% coming from contact with a case in a diverse range of settings.
25% were also travel-related, while 16% came from community transmission.
Speaking about the Delta variant, Henry stated: “I have no doubt that the ECDC [European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control] is correct in what they say – that this will become the dominant variant throughout Europe throughout July and August.”
Also on Thursday, NPHET raised concern that Ireland is in the early phase of an increase in Covid incidence driven by the Delta variant.
This was as 448 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in Ireland and the death toll from the virus reached 5,000.
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