Thread by @ShonaMurray_

Interview w Belgian virologist @vanranstmarc who says he fears vaccine mandates play into the hands of the far-right & may lead to people not vaccinating babies.
He also says the situation in Ireland needs close attention given high vaccination, and that ventilation is paramount.

On vaccine mandate:
"It is a very tough question, and it depends on which country you live. If you live in a country where 65 percent of the population, only 65 percent is vaccinated. Mandatory vaccination might get you over the hump.

"If you have 98 pc of the elderly are vaccinated, then making vaccination mandatory might create an unwanted backlash that it's not going to gain you so much. What is very sure is that this would be the biggest gift to the anti-vaccination movement that you could ever give."

"And the one thing that I'm really afraid of and you sort of see interesting things of that is that people are becoming polarised. And this discussion, we're not going to vaccinate their newborns against diseases."

"If the infant immunisation would suffer because of the polarisation around the vaccine, that might create problems for years."

He says there's a lot yet to learn about #Omicron but in South Africa, "I would say so far, so good. But we have not seen the only true variant in a population where more elderly people are getting involved in the disease."

However, he tells me " if you're unvaccinated and you're not living in a cave there, there is one certainty and that is you will get the disease. You might escape for a couple of months.., then it will become almost inevitable that that you're going to get it."

"Now when you're vaccinated, the symptoms seem really mild. I hope it stays that way. The problem is, we don't know yet for sure. That might really help. But if you're unvaccinated, I have only one message under this get vaccinated."

He says "everything starts with ventilation and I think all of our attention should be really focused on that."

“Ventilation is the most important thing”

Says Ireland has a “sensible population” but ‘where’s it going wrong?’ @euronews