‘Shambolic’ travel tracing system ‘makes a mockery of health staff ’
HEALTH experts have expressed serious concerns over Christmas travel as figures show Ireland has not been thoroughly following up with visitors to ensure they’re restricting their movements.
According to figures requested by the Irish Mail on Sunday, only a quarter of passengers have been followed up by phone to check whether they are at the address they stated on their locator form.
This had led one TD to describe the situation as an ‘abject failure’, with a leading neuroscientist warning it makes a ‘mockery’ of the work which is being done by frontline staff.
Over 445,000 passenger locator forms have been filled out since August 26 and there have only been 105,000 successful follow-up phone calls to date to passengers from high-risk Covid countries to verify their place of address, according to the Department of Health.
Passengers from countries with elevated incidence rates are first texted to verify they are at the address indicated on their forms. Around 585,000 texts have been sent with ‘follow-up phone calls as appropriate’ according to a spokeswoman for the Department.
Only three travel cases in total have been referred to the Garda National Immigration Bureau and this was due to passengers refusing to fill in the locator form. Fines of up to €2,500 and imprisonment for six months for refusing to fill out the form and for not staying at the address indicated can be issued.
The passenger locator system has been described as ‘a complete shambles’ with figures on the number of phone contacts made to passengers described as ‘going through the floor’ since August. The MoS was also told the figures showed the State’s ‘unwillingness to act rigorously’ on cases coming into the country.
Under the previous system, passengers arriving from abroad had to fill in a locator form and restrict their movements for 14 days. Under the new EU wide traffic light system, which came into force on November 9, people arriving from ‘green’ countries – where cases have been below 25 per 100,000 population over the previous 14 days – do not have to restrict their movements. Those coming from orange countries do not have to restrict their movement if they can show they have had a negative PCR test in the three days before arriving in Ireland.
In September, the number of successful follow-up phone calls made to passengers was 65,765, according to a response to a parliamentary question from Labour spokesman on transport, Duncan Smith. Calls halved in October to 30,625.
Mr Smith told the MoS: ‘The passenger locator system has been an abject failure, the numbers have just gone through the floor. We have a trend where most people aren’t getting called at all and even those that are getting called – what does it mean? This model was never really fit for purpose. All you do is give your mobile number, you get a call and a person asks if you’re at the address and you say yes.’
He added that Ireland will be relying on people to follow the guidelines of their own accord. ‘We have to hammer home the point that this can’t be the social Christmas that we know and love, this will be a Christmas to see very close family and follow public health guidelines in place at the time,’ he said.
He called for the ‘beefing up’ of our locator system for December as it is the only infrastructure we have in place to check in on visitors to Ireland ‘but the reality is we won’t have officials, knocking on doors to see who’s there’.
Health experts have called for a robust contact system to be put in place to ensure visitors restrict their movements as Christmas travel ‘poses the biggest risk to the country since the start of the pandemic’.
UCC AXA Research Chair in Applied Pathogen Ecology, Gerry Killeen said: ‘We need a robust tracking system that isn’t just a text message. Look at what other countries are doing. If you’re considered a close contact in Australia, it’s mandatorily enforceable that you self-isolate and people show up at your door to make sure you’re there. This is what’s required, otherwise all this hard work, all this money, everything we’re doing, just gets undone.’
Trinity College neuroscientist, Dr Tomás Ryan, called Ireland’s travel restrictions a ‘complete shambles’ and said a system of quarantine and serial testing for those coming into Ireland should be established in order to avoid a third wave towards the end of January, otherwise we are making a mockery of the work of frontline health staff and contact tracers.
He said ideally, what we should be aiming for is a situation where individuals who come into the country are isolated in rooms for a period of time and tested several times but he
‘This model was never fit for purpose’
‘All this hard work just gets undone’
said it’s unlikely we could do this by Christmas. He said: ‘Most of our cases stem from cases coming into the country over the summer and then think of all the effort everyone else is trying to do here to keep things under control, it’s like we’re mopping up a wet floor but the pipe is still leaking.
He said: ‘We need to look at countries that have been successful and those are countries that have had serious travel restrictions. We have a situation where people can come into the country, stay with family and people can visit them and there is no way to control that. Even if you go to their place of residence to check they’re there, people can visit them. If we don’t control the virus coming into the country, then I don’t see how we can get this right.’
Dr Paul Dempsey, mathematical scientist and director of data analysis company Dazult, told the MoS that mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine for visitors would have a massive impact on our ability to reopen the country. Mr Dempsey said: ‘Suppose in an ideal world we start at zero mystery cases, all sources known and households which are close contacts and potential future cases already in restricted movement mode.
‘With four imports a day – and this is a very low estimate – and Level 2 growth at around 8% per day we’d get to 250 cases a day in various scenarios in 22 days, with no quarantine or testing at all... or up to 44 days with five-day airport quarantine. With 14-day quarantine that likely extends to 79 days, possibly longer,’ he said. ‘That’s an additional eight weeks that small business, restaurants and pubs can trade if we have 14-day airport quarantine.’
However he warned: ‘The North going out of control like it is now, will mean the border counties won’t get to enjoy any of this, but there needs to be a realistic look at splitting Louth, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan depending on where the workplace commutes are happening, and enforcing proper checks internally in such counties.’