Covid 'will be with us for some time' says Athlone virologist

Although there is some uncertainty about the direction of the pandemic over the coming months, a leading virologist from Athlone said it's likely that Covid infections will continue to be a problem for quite some time.

Over the last 18 months Dr Gerald Barry, who lectures in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UCD, has been interviewed about the pandemic on a number of occasions by RTÉ and other national media.

Speaking to the Westmeath Independent recently, he said the vaccination roll-out had been very beneficial in helping to prevent serious illness and death, but it was less effective in stopping people from getting infected with the virus or spreading it to others.

"Initially it was thought by some people that vaccines would come out, everybody would get vaccinated, and this problem would disappear. I think that was a little naive, to an extent.

"When it was clear that a zero-Covid approach was off the table, it became obvious pretty quickly that this virus was going to be with us for a long time," he said.

"The clinical trials for the vaccines were not aimed at measuring their ability to stop infection. What they were aimed at was their ability to stop serious illness, hospitalisation and death. These vaccines do that really well.

"But I think it's becoming clearer and clearer that vaccinated people are still vulnerable to infection and still vulnerable to passing on the infection to other people.

"That means that, even if you get 90 to 95% of people vaccinated, it's not going to stop the virus circulating in the population."

He also noted that when cases had increased previously people tended to become more cautious and change their behaviour.

"Anecdotally, from my own experience, I don't think that's happening any more," he said and added that this was also influencing the rising case numbers.

A former pupil of the Marist national and secondary schools, Gerald grew up in Retreat Park and Barrymore. He is married to fellow Athlone native, Linda (nee Mannion), from the Hill of Berries, Kiltoom, and they have three daughters, aged eight, six and two.

Gerald's parents, Gerry and Geraldine Barry, live in Monksland and he gets back to Athlone for visits whenever the public health situation allows.

A standout soccer player in his youth, Gerald lined out for local Kennedy Cup teams and for Athlone Town at underage level.

After studying human genetics in Trinity College he got a scholarship to embark on a Masters degree, and then a PhD in virology, at the University of Edinburgh.

He ended up being based in Scotland for over a decade, working at The Roslin Institute in Edinburgh and at The Centre for Virus Research in Glasgow.

"I lived in Edinburgh the whole time, and it's a beautiful city. It has fantastic science, with some real world-leaders over there, as well as amazing facilities and resources. Living there was a brilliant experience and I learned a huge amount."

At the beginning of 2015 he moved back to Ireland to take up his current lectureship position in UCD.

"I'm based in the vet school in UCD, so I teach vets, medics and science students about viruses," he explained.

His field of expertise became the focus of unprecedented attention in the early part of 2020 when the Coronavirus began to spread.

Gerald admits that, when he first heard about this virus, he didn't foresee that it would have such severe and lasting consequences. His brother-in-law is based in Beijing and Gerald recalled sending him a text message in early 2020.

"I sent him a text, which he reminds me of constantly, saying there's talk of a new respiratory illness in a place called Wuhan.

"He travels quite a bit, so I told him that if he was travelling he might want to avoid that area for the next few weeks until things settle down.

"But even when it was really strong in China, and my brother-in-law was telling me about the restrictions there, I don't think I appreciated what it was going to become and how devastating it was going to be globally."

Since then, Gerald has been interviewed about the pandemic on TV and radio on a number of occasions, appearing on RTÉ's evening news and on its Prime Time programme.

Asked about the media appearances, he said, "I've learned that you have to be careful with what you say because it can get misconstrued, misinterpreted, or clipped in a certain way that maybe is not quite what you meant.

"I just had to learn to be a little bit more careful. But it has been valuable as well because I've had a lot of very positive feedback, thankfully, and it's been lovely to be able to communicate some of the complicated science side of things in what's hopefully a digestible way."

A recommendation is expected this week from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) about a campaign of 'booster' shots for the fully-vaccinated, but Gerald said he was not convinced boosters would be beneficial.

He said he was not aware of any evidence that giving people a third vaccine jab, or a second jab in the case of those who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, would strengthen protection against serious illness or death.

"I would worry that they'd roll out the booster, everyone would get the booster, and effectively nothing would change. We'd be still in the same situation, rates of hospitalisations would be the same and cases would continue to increase.

"And then I would worry that it would reduce people's confidence, so that if they did come out with an exciting booster in the future that was, say, Delta-specific, or even a bit broader than Delta, which would have a big positive impact, the uptake mightn't be as strong as it could have been because people maybe got the previous booster and didn't really see any benefit from it."

He also said he had ethical concerns around giving people a third jab when there were parts of the world that didn't have access to any vaccines.

"People like Dr Mike Ryan (of the World Health Organisation) have come out very strongly with the same view. I think he used the word 'immoral' to describe giving boosters to people when you have countries in the world that don't have any vaccines at all.

"I would be very much in agreement with that at the moment, based on current evidence."

Students will soon be returning to UCD for the start of the new college term, and this time it will be in person, with up to 250 students due to be allowed attend lecture halls.

Gerald said that, from a teaching perspective, the return of in-person classes was welcome.

"Over the last year, I found teaching online very challenging because of the lack of interaction with students.

"Connecting with students about an exciting topic is the best part of teaching for me and that is much more difficult when not in the classroom, so I'm really looking forward to getting back to campus when the new term starts," he concluded.