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HSE Clinical Director Dr. Colm Henry has said that Christmas won’t be canceled in 2020, but it will be different.
Dr. Henry also warned that intensive care beds are not the solution to the spread of Covid-19.
Speaking to Newstalk, Dr. Henry said: “We cannot rely on intensive care beds as a line of defense. The only way to prevent the spread of the virus was to limit contacts.
Dr. Henry said that this message has become more important in recent weeks and that people needed to reduce their contacts and manage their contacts.
“We need to reduce any chance of catching him.
“You have to assume you have the virus in terms of your social contacts.”
Dr. Henry said that while the goal was to double the number of ICU beds, that alone would not prevent transfer to the community, which was the problem.
He said, “Yes, we absolutely need more beds, they had 225 miserable and now we have 278 beds.”
“Trained staff and the availability of specialized equipment, such as ventilators, led to a 79 percent recovery rate earlier this year.”
When asked if Christmas should be canceled, Dr. Henry said, “It should never be canceled, but it will be in a different way.”
The national clinical advisor and director of the acute care hospital program acknowledged that there had been some delays in the arrival of the flu vaccine, but that more batches would arrive soon and Dr. Henry believed that there would be sufficient quantities.
He said: “The health service is looking into winter and planning an increase in respiratory illnesses that could mimic Covid-19. They were currently carrying out a modeling process.”
The 100,000 test capacity was not a goal and he believed it was sufficient today.
“It was unfortunate, but the country learned the hard way that the message was the need to keep your distance.
“That was the only way to protect everyone and everyone else,” he added.
Dr. Henry also said that the HSE would be closely monitoring a number of counties that are showing worrisome increases in Covid-19.
He said the HSE had been monitoring the two-day incidence rates of Covid-19 in Waterford, Limerick, Kildare, Leitrim, Donegal and Offaly.
He said: “The patterns there are somewhat different, but there is still that worrying level of escalation of community transmission, that is, cases on the streets that we cannot link to any known Chaim of transmission.”
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