Record of 3,394 cases reported in the Republic

Another 3,394 cases of Covid-19 were reported on Saturday, almost double the highest number of cases previously registered in a day in the Republic since the pandemic began.

The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) also recorded four more deaths.

There are currently 607 Covid-19 patients in the hospital, of which 56 are in the ICU. Nphet said there were 71 people admitted to the hospital with the virus in the past 24 hours.

Medical director Dr. Tony Holohan said that the Covid-19 incidence rate was just as high, if not higher now than it was in March.

“Each individual needs to act like they are contagious. Hospitalizations are increasing to levels close to what we saw in the spring. Everyone needs to stay home except for work or essential care, ”he said.

“It is really important that the elderly and vulnerable do not leave their homes unless absolutely necessary. This includes asking neighbors or family members to run errands like grocery shopping, limiting all contacts to only those people you live with or have to visit for essential care reasons. “

Dr. Holohan added that “we need to rediscover the spirit of solidarity and community that we saw in March and April so that we can all do our part in protecting the elderly and vulnerable.”

“People particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 include older people and people with pre-existing medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and cancer,” he said.

Of the 3,394 cases reported on Saturday, 389 were in Cork, 355 in Dublin, 339 in Donegal, 258 in Louth, 233 in May, and the remaining 1,820 cases were spread across all other counties.

About 65% of cases are under 45 years old, while the average age is 35 years.

Ireland’s 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 is 381.6.

Saturday’s figures followed a warning from the chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team modeling advisory group that there could be as many as 6,000 Covid-19 cases a day reported at the peak of the current increase.

Professor Philip Nolan warned that “we must prepare for some really worrying numbers in the coming days, both in the number of cases and in the hospital system.”

He told RTÉ’s Radio 1 on Saturday that there could be “between 3,000 and 6,000” cases at the peak of the current increase and that Saturday’s figures would include some of the 9,000 delayed cases that were flagged by Nphet this week.

Earlier, Dr Elaine Doyle, a writer and former scholar whose social media posts comparing the outbreak in Ireland and the UK went viral online, said headline figures on the coronavirus were giving the public an “idea. completely wrong. “

Referring to Nphet data on New Year’s Day showing 1,754 new cases daily, Dr. Doyle said another 5,573 positive swabs on the same day had yet to be verified due to a delay.

“That is an astronomical figure. It’s beyond our worst fears, it’s beyond our worst nightmares, it’s absolutely huge, “he said.

Official figures are “stuck at around 1,700,” he said, because the case management system can only handle so many new cases, meaning that Ireland does not have “real-time statistics on what is actually happening on the ground. “.

Professor Nolan said Saturday with Katie Hannon that the Health Protection Surveillance Center (HPSC) and other public health officials had been working in recent days “to add functionality to the IT system to enable it to cope with those volumes. so high “and expected the problem to be resolved in the next five to seven days.

He said the cases being reported now would be comparable to a reproduction number of 1.8 to 2, but that a formal estimate would not be available until next week.

Professor Nolan said that in the run-up to Christmas, 15,000 people were referred for testing and fewer than 1,000 of them tested positive. He said this was later reduced to less than 4,000 tests per day with a few hundred positive.

He said the delayed presentations and the level of socializing that occurred before and during Christmas had led to an increase in cases.

“We saw an even more intense level of socialization and viral transmission during Christmas than we could have expected and that is what brings us to the really precarious position that we are in now,” he said.

Professor Nolan said that according to all indicators “we are in a very significant increase” of the disease and the fundamental message was that people stay at home and restrict movements “as much as we did in March and April to change course” .

He said the South African variant, which is believed to be even more transmittable than that found in the UK, had yet to be detected in Ireland.

In the Republic, nine more cases of the Covid-19 strain discovered for the first time in Great Britain have been detected.

Dr. Cillian De Gascun, director of the UCD’s National Virus Reference Laboratory, said late Friday that testing of samples dating from Dec. 23-29 had found nine more cases of the most infectious variant.

He said this brought the total number of cases identified by the lab to 16, out of 169 analyzed to date.

Dr De Gascun said on Twitter that the small number of cases identified would suggest that the UK variant, “in a proportion of less than 10 per cent”, was not responsible for the recent “significant and worrying” increase in the number of coronavirus cases.

His comments come amid ongoing concern about the rapid rise in the level of coronavirus infections across the state and fears about the impact on the health service.

On Saturday morning, HSE CEO Paul Reid said 581 patients were in the hospital with Covid-19, an increase from 51 at 8 p.m. Friday night. He said 50 were in intensive care. Reid said on Twitter: “We probably haven’t seen the worst impacts yet. But everything we do today to stop the spread of this virus makes a big difference. “

HSE Clinical Director Dr Colm Henry told The Irish Times on Friday that measures to control the virus were already affecting the hospital sector. “There are more than 400 beds out of service in recent days,” he said, due to infection prevention measures “related in many cases to Covid-19 and, secondly, the impossibility of beds for staff” because the staff has Covid-19 or is considered a close contact.

Medical Director Dr. Tony Holohan said, “Our healthcare system will not continue to face this level of shock.”

Vaccinations

Meanwhile, the state will examine whether the period between the two required doses of the Covid-19 vaccine could be extended to speed up deployment, as is being done in the UK.

Professor Brian MacCraith, chair of the state’s Covid-19 task force, said the group had discussed the issue of increasing the gap between vaccine doses in recent days.

“Following our discussions, a formal request has been issued for [Dr Holohan] apply for [the National Immunisation Advisory Committee] explore the topic and provide some guidance on it.

“Given that we want to be as ambitious and effective as possible, and given the backdrop of rapidly increasing numbers and our priority focus on the vulnerable in nursing homes and front-line healthcare workers, we have to consider all the options, ”he said.