Donnelly hits out at ‘damaging’ anti-vaxxers for spreading fear around Covid-19

The Health Minister has hit out at anti-vaxxers for peddling mistruths and spreading fear around Covid-19. 

Stephen Donnelly has said he was “not particularly surprised” by an RTÉ survey which has found that one-third of people would refuse the first vaccine approved by the EU.

“I think there is an anti-vax movement, which personally I think is very damaging and very ill-informed, but quite prolific on social media.”

Mr Donnelly, speaking on Morning Ireland, said people now get their information from a variety of sources but warned “there are people out there who are intent on spreading fear.”

“People are peddling things which are simply untrue for whatever reasons.”

He added: “We’re about to roll out the biggest flu vaccination program the country’s ever seen, we have about 2million doses, it’s a critical component of the Winter Plan and keeping people out of hospital this winter.”

The Government yesterday accepted NPHET recommendations to further restrict household visits in every county in the country.

Visits will be limited to six people from one other household as had already been the case in Dublin and Donegal.

Mr Donnelly said: “The R number is now about 1.3, which means the level of the virus is doubling about every two weeks.

“Given all of this, what NPHET have said is that they know that the primary mode of transmission is close contacts and that the primary clusters around the country are within households. So what’s spreading this virus now, more than anything, is different households meeting each other.”

He said it would take at least 10 days for us to see the impact of the increased measures and the efforts people are making.

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