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Unless people strictly follow social distancing guidelines, we could soon have 400 people in intensive care beds, the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) warned.
The Department of Health confirmed six new deaths related to Covid-19 and 6,110 new cases. This now brings deaths to 2,265 and cases to 107,997.
The number of hospitalized patients with Covid-19 is now 776, including 70 in the ICU.
The county with the highest incidence rate in 14 days is Monaghan at 1,119.1, the rate in Limerick has also increased back to 979 and the incidence rate in Cork is 453.
Monaghan has the highest reported 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 at 1,119.1 while Wicklow reported the lowest at 273.1.
The border counties of Louth and Donegal reported high 14-day incident rates respectively, as well as 1,031.2 and 832.3.
Each county declared new cases, and the 14-day national incidence rate of cases per 100,000 in 582.8 continues to accelerate rapidly.
Cork registered 291 and Limerick reported 234 cases. 137 cases were confirmed in Louth, while the remaining 1,470 cases are found in every other county in the country.
Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), said tonight: “We have not been so concerned at any point about the pandemic, people have to stay home. We couldn’t express the urgency of that now in clearer terms, this is a really very serious situation.
The chairman of Nphet’s Epidemiological Modeling Group, Professor Philip Nolan, warned of up to 400 people in intensive care, which would exceed the current HSE capacity of 287.
He said: “We are looking at numbers that I never anticipated I could report. …. We confirm a little over 3000 cases per day on average. That level of illness is already having a huge impact on our hospitals.
An additional breakdown of the case data released by the Department of Health shows:
- 2,911 cases are men and 3,195 cases are women
- 63% of cases are under 45 years of age
- The average age of the cases is 36 years.
92 patients were admitted to a hospital in Ireland in the last 24 hours and 776 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been hospitalized.
70 of those people are receiving treatment for Covid-19 in intensive care. 11 people were admitted to intensive care units (ICU) in the last 24 hours.
17 people were discharged from the hospital, three of them from intensive care.
Delays in nursing homes that should have started vaccinating today will not affect the overall deployment, said HSE National Director of Acute Operations Dr. Liam Woods.
The examiner understands that many nursing homes are working with Excel to archive consent data instead of HSE’s new IT system, which is not yet fully online.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly told RTÉ today that the vaccination target has increased thanks to an early delivery from Pfizer.
In the first days of vaccination, 4,000 people received their first vaccination, he said, adding that 25 nursing homes and 20 hospitals will start this week.
An HSE spokeswoman said: “We have received 40,000 doses of the Pfizer / BioNtech vaccine. By the end of next week, we plan to have distributed about 35,000 vaccines of the 40,000 received. “
Meanwhile, public health doctors investigating and tracking this virus have turned away from strike threats.
The country’s 91 Specialists in Public Health Medicine (SPHM) had planned three days of action this month as part of their 17-year battle for consultant and contract status.
The IMO Public Health Committee notified the HSE and the Department of Health of the industrial action in late November.
It is understood that the decision to postpone the strike did not follow any approach by HSE or the Department of Health.
The SPHM appear to have decided to take the initiative in light of recent events.
Currently these doctors, despite leading Ireland’s response to Covid-19, do not have consultant or salary status, although this was part of a salary and productivity agreement in 201. Productivity growth accelerated due to the crisis However, they did not receive the additional payment or Contracts.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has repeatedly stressed that he “fully supports the creation of consultant-level roles in Public Health Medicine” and has said that the creation of these roles is “a priority” for him.
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