Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:1692. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Health the quarantine rules that would apply in the case of a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34443/21]
View answerTuesday, 27 July 2021
Questions (1692)
Written answers
Mandatory hotel quarantine has been introduced as one element of Ireland’s public health measures to combat the transmission of COVID-19.
Passengers who are fully vaccinated and have the documents to confirm this are not required to complete mandatory hotel quarantine on arrival in Ireland. Dependents, including children, will also be exempted from the requirement to complete mandatory hotel quarantine in this instance.
Please note that the 4 EMA approved vaccines currently accepted have specific definitions for when a person would be considered fully vaccinated. The following table outlines the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ in order to qualify for an exemption.
|
A full course of any one of the following vaccines |
Regarded as fully vaccinated after |
|
2 doses of Pfizer-BioNtech Vaccine: BNT162b2 (Comirnaty®) |
7 days |
|
2 doses of Moderna Vaccine: CX-024414 (Moderna®) |
14 days |
|
2 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine: ChAdOx1-SARS-COV-2 (Vaxzevria® or Covishield) |
15 days |
|
1 dose of Johnson & Johnson/Janssen Vaccine: Ad26.COV2-S [recombinant] (Janssen®) |
14 days |
Covid 19 vaccines can only be approved and used if they comply with all the requirements of quality, safety and efficacy set out in the EU pharmaceutical legislation. No vaccine will be used until Market Authorisation from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is obtained and any authorised vaccine will be subject to ongoing monitoring in Ireland by the Health Product Regulatory Authority (HPRA).
At present, the Sinovac vaccine has not received EMA approval.
You may wish to note that as of 16 July, persons arriving from the United Arab Emirates are no longer automatically subject to Mandatory Hotel Quarantine. However, they are still subject to other travel restrictions such as home quarantine, supplying passenger locator form information and ensuring they have evidence of a negative RT-PCR test conducted within the 72 hours prior to their arrival in Ireland.
It is important to note that the list of designated states will be subject to change at short notice and passengers are required to check the list before travelling to Ireland, to be sure of their obligations.
Neither the Minister for Health or the Department of Health have any role in deciding which persons must enter mandatory quarantine or which persons are exempt from entering mandatory quarantine. All such decisions are to be determined in accordance with the provisions of the Act.