I agree that the primary benefit of vaccination is the reduced risk of serious illness, particularly for the elderly, and this has significant implications for Ireland's hugely overstretched health services which have seen a huge reduction in elective and other health services, increased waiting lists for urgent treatments, and morbidity from non Covid causes.

The Irish Times only published two paragraphs out of five in my original letter and you can really only make one point in a letter if you want to have a high chance of it being published.

The fact that vaccination only has a limited benefit in reducing spread is something that has only become clear in relatively recent times, and particularly with Omicron which seems to reside in the nasal tract and upper throat even in vaccinated people, and thus still represents a huge risk of reinfection.

However the comparison I make with intoxicated, uninsured or unlicensed drivers is I think fair. There is only a small statistical increase in the chances that such drivers will cause an accident leading to serious harm, but that is deemed by society to be a sufficient reason to ban them completely.

Mask mandates are still operative in Ireland and that is the best preventative measure we still have. As I say in my comment above I think this debate is about to become moot in Ireland, at least, because a precipitous decline in cases, - unless we get a more virulent variant coming in.

Index of Frank's Diaries