Seven travellers brought Covid to Northern Ireland, says QUB study

Lisa Smyth Twitter

October 07 2021 06:48 AM

The pandemic began to spread across Northern Ireland after seven travellers unwittingly brought the virus here, researchers in Belfast have found.

A study carried out by a team from Queen’s University appears to suggest that a positive case identified in Northern Ireland in January 2020 did not result in the virus spreading further.

However, according to the research, it is estimated seven people who had been exposed to the disease but who were asymptomatic and not yet infectious on March 1, imported Covid-19 to Northern Ireland.

Almost 250,000 people in Northern Ireland have now tested positive with Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, while the number of deaths linked to the SAR-Cov-2 virus had reached 3,443 by September 24, according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.

The Queen’s University experts used mathematical modelling to track the course of Covid-19 in Northern Ireland and help preparations for future variants and diseases.

The findings of the research, published in the Open Journal of Modelling and Simulation, said: "Although the first reported case of Covid-19 in Northern Ireland dated from January 11, 2020, there are no other confirmed cases until March 5, 2020.

"Hence, this study focuses on data from March 1, 2020 up to December 25, 2020.”

The report went on to suggest the case reported in January “had no effect on the course of the epidemic”.

The study also estimated that it took an average of 9.6 days for an exposed person to develop symptoms and become infectious and that a symptomatic patient could spread the disease for nine days.

Dr Gabor Kiss, who led the research, said: “The modelling suggests that the outbreak could have entered the country undetected as it took some time for people to become infectious and develop symptoms.”

The experts also looked in detail at the period of the first lockdown and found that the number of infectious individuals decreased rapidly after disease-spread limiting interventions were introduced, such as social distancing and mask wearing.

At the end of March, the study estimates that there were 327 infectious individuals but that this decreased to 27 over three months.

However, the modelling suggests that the number of exposed individuals showed a more prolonged decline.

An estimated 388 were exposed at the end of March and this decreased to 151 over three months.

Dr Gabor Kiss continued: “This research provides in depth data on how exactly Covid-19 spread in Northern Ireland and this will help to develop public health-driven strategies, not just in Northern Ireland, but across the globe.”

The research has been released as the Department of Health released the findings of a report looking at the vaccination status of people who have been hospitalised and died from Covid-19 between the end of August and September 26.

Among the findings were that three-quarters of adult inpatients aged under 50 were unvaccinated and 22% of inpatients over 50-years-old were unvaccinated.

Unvaccinated people aged 50 and over are five times as likely to be hospitalised as fully vaccinated individuals, while people in the same age group who haven’t been vaccinated are almost four times as likely to die.

A further 1,339 people in Northern Ireland were diagnosed with Covid-19 yesterday, while the seven-day case rate rose from 7,570 to 7,913.

Meanwhile, one Covid-19 related death of a person aged between 40 and 59 and a second involving a person in the 80 plus age category were reported.