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The country is moving to Level 5 restrictions for at least a month to contain the increase in coronavirus cases.
There have been 13 more Covid-related deaths and 1,718 new cases reported by the Health Department.
The Executive of the Health Service held its weekly press conference in which several of these issues were discussed.
Here are five things we learned from the briefing:
41% increase in testing demand
The national HSE testing and tracing leader has said they have seen a 41% increase in demand for Covid-19 testing, with 63,000 referrals seen over the past week.
Niamh O’Beirne said they expect that number to double next week, as it is rising sharply at the moment.
O’Beirne said trends in the coming days indicate that they could be looking at 25,000 a day for several days.
The 21-30 age group has the highest detection rate
The highest number of referrals comes from the age group 21-30, which said it also has the highest virus detection rate at 8.9%.
This was followed by the 31 to 40 age group, which accounted for 18.5% of all test referrals, which had a 7.6% detection rate.
The highest incidence rate per 100,000 people was observed among young people aged 19-24 with 496.1, followed by those aged 25-44 with 340.5 per 100,000 people.
10% of new cases in recent weeks are among people over 65.
The R number
The reproductive number is now 1.8 and getting the R number below 1 now would require a huge national effort.
HSE Clinical Director Dr. Colm Henry said that even if we managed to reduce the R number to 1.4, this would still translate to 2,000 cases per day in mid-January, and maybe 3,000 per day in late January.
He said the corresponding number in hospitals at that stage could reach 800.
Speaking at the HSE briefing, Dr. Colm Henry said that “it is unthinkable that we can maintain an R-value of 1.8”. | Read more: https://t.co/hFfTLB6R41 pic.twitter.com/QhSkPanvxf
– RTÉ News (@rtenews) December 30, 2020
Contact tracking
The HSE said they are seeing a 129% increase in the number of calls made last week, which will increase in the coming weeks.
Yesterday, contact trackers made just under 13,000 calls.
HSE CEO Paul Reid said there have been times when there have been more than 100 cases in a day where people had between 20 and 30 close contacts.
Reid said the number of contact tracing calls has increased by 300% in recent weeks and will only continue to grow in the next few days.
Hospitals
HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid said “hospitals are coping,” but added that they will be under increasing pressure in the coming weeks.
Mr. Reid said that, as of this morning, there were 454 patients in the hospital, with 39 in intensive care.
He said there were 650 beds available, but that has decreased in recent days, adding that there are 55 critical care beds available.
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