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The state’s accumulation of tests for coronavirus has dropped from a high point of about 35,000 people expecting results to about 11,000, said executive director of the Health Services Executive (HSE), Paul Reid.
He said 25 laboratories were now being used to examine the Covid-19 tests, including 20 in hospitals, the national laboratory at UCD, a Department of Agriculture facility and a center in Germany, which has helped reduce the accumulation of results.
At a press conference in Dublin on Monday, Reid said nearly 9,000 tests were completed on Saturday.
“We have accumulated a significant backlog of orders … That backlog will continue to shrink and will shrink entirely later this week,” he said.
Reid said some 72,000 tests have been completed in the state to date, and that this has doubled “in no time.”
The daily average of tests that were completed was 2,800, but the system reached a “peak” of 8,900 on Saturday, he said.
There are now 9,655 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state, and 334 people have died as a result of becoming infected with Covid-19.
Essential
Increased testing capacity is considered essential to the government’s plans to limit the spread of the coronavirus to the point that it may consider easing restrictions on personal movement, which are in effect until May 5 at least.
The figures of the Senior Government emphasize that although they do not want to extend the restrictions further, they will do so if they consider it necessary.
The current blockade is expected to slow the virus down to the point that it allows “space” for some restrictions to be alleviated, such as some students being able to attend school on a limited basis, without risking a substantial increase in infections; If this happens, stricter measures will be reintroduced.
Health officials are doing “very preliminary work” on how to “ease the restrictions,” according to a high-level government source, but the rate of reproduction of the virus should slow in the coming weeks before life limitations economic and social. You will be relaxed.
It is emphasized that in the post-closure period the tests will be seen more quickly, with the criteria for a test to expand from those showing two symptoms of the virus to one.
Growth rate
To consider lifting the restrictions, Health Minister Simon Harris said the virus’s growth rate, which is now below 10 percent, should drop below 5 percent; and that the average number of people in intensive care units receiving treatment for the virus should be reduced to about 100 from its current level of approximately 150.
Harris also said that the rate of reproduction of the virus, the rate that measures how many people each infected person is likely to transmit the virus, is now “in and around” one.
“If that is just above one, the virus continues to grow; If it is slightly below one, the virus is beginning to suppress itself, “he said.
A reproductive rate of 0.6 or 0.7 is said to offer the “space” to ease some constraints and monitor the effect of such movement while allowing stricter measures to be applied again if necessary without risking a dramatic spike in new infections
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