Number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals at highest point in more than 100 days

Ireland now has 110 Covid-19 patients in hospitals across the country, the highest number in more than 100 days.

The number of people in intensive care units has also increased to 18.

HSE chief Paul Reid described the growing number of cases as “significant”, before urging the public to adhere to the government guidelines.

He tweeted: “We now have 110 COVID19 hospital cases, 18 in ICU.

“Although it is lower than our worst peak, the impact on our hospitals is as significant as we are now trying to keep all of our other services running.

“This is a call to arms for everyone to support everything we ask for.”

His plea comes after Professor Philip Nolan warned that close contacts should continue to isolate themselves even if they test negative.

Explaining how people can receive a false negative test result, the chair of NPHET’s Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group said that people in the early stages of the virus sometimes test negative when it begins to spread through the cells of their body.

And as someone begins to recover from the error, tests can still fail to identify a positive case up to 30% of the time.

On Twitter this morning, the chair of the NPHET Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group said: “First, at any given time, about 30% of infected people are in the latent period, three to five days after being infected, where the virus is multiplying within your cells and is not yet detectable.

“Second, even when they start shedding the virus, a sensitivity of 70% to 90% means that the test will miss the virus in 10% to 30% of cases.

“An ‘undetected’ test does not prove that you do not have the virus; it does not show that you are ‘Covid free’.

“This is why close contacts of a confirmed case are tested twice, and why we must restrict our movements even if the first test is negative.

“A close contact has a one in ten chance of being infected.

“If you have symptoms highly suggestive of Covid-19 and your tests show ‘not detected’, or your doctor has other reasons to suspect that you really may have SARS-CoV-2, they will repeat the test.

“It is vital that the tests have adequate clinical supervision and interpretation.”