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A growing delay in confirming new Covid-19 cases in Ireland is hiding the actual “frankly scary” number of infections, one researcher warned.
Speaking to the Irish Times, Dr Elaine Doyle, a writer and former scholar whose social media posts comparing the outbreak in the Republic and the UK went viral online, said headline numbers on the coronavirus are giving the public a “completely wrong idea”.
How quickly the virus is spreading across the country is “beyond our worst nightmares,” with actual numbers likely to be more than double the official count, he said.
Referring to data from the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) on New Years Day showing 1,754 new cases daily, Dr. Doyle said another 5,573 positive swabs on the same day had not yet been 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.
Positive cases should be verified in case they are counted twice, for example when a person had more than one test, or to verify that the time lapse between testing and verification means that they are no longer contagious.
Positive swabs
Nphet has said that there is an overall backlog of 9,000 cases that have yet to be verified due to an increase in transmission over Christmas.
Dr. Doyle said that between 5 and 10 percent end up unverified.
“If we had 5,500 positive swabs in one day, and at most 10 percent are duplicates or, for some reason, we have to remove them from the official count, that means we have the guts of 5,000 new cases in one day,” he said. .
“The headline figure of 1,754 gives people a completely wrong idea. They are still alarmed, but have no idea how this is increasing exponentially, that we are riding a wave vertically at this point. “
Official figures are “stuck around the 1,700 mark” because the case management system can only handle so many new cases, meaning that Ireland has no “real-time statistics on what is actually happening on the ground” .
“People are not being shocked by discovering there are 5,000 new cases a day and not adapting their behavior accordingly, and more importantly, the government is not being held to account at levels that were previously unimaginable,” he said. Dr. Doyle.
The positivity rate for the tests was also “a huge flashing neon light,” he added.
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