With Christmas looming and Covid-19 case numbers surging, concern is mounting about the impact a new wave of the virus is likely to have on people and our public health system.
Antigen testing for school children and maintaining many of the health measures introduced in the early phase of the crisis – including masks, increased hand sanitisation and limiting contacts – are key tools in the fight, while a booster programme for vulnerable people is under way.
But will it be enough?
Should a broader booster programme be rolled out and what impact would it have on the trajectory of the virus? And perhaps, even more importantly, what does the end of the crisis look like and when will it happen?
The Irish Times public affairs editor Simon Carswell has been covering Covid-19 since the crisis began. In this episode of the In The News podcast, he teases out some of the key questions around Covid-19 and searches for answers with immunologists Prof Christine Loscher and Prof Kingston Mills.
In The News is hosted by reporters Conor Pope and Sorcha Pollak.
You can listen to the podcast here: