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The deaths of another 24 patients were announced by National Public Health Emergency Team at its briefing on Tuesday. There have now been 1,488 Covid-19 related deaths in the State.
There were 107 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed bringing the total number of cases confirmed over the course of the pandemic to 23,242. The median age of confirmed cases is 49 years, 57 per cent female and 42 per cent male.
Over the past week 44,047 tests for Covid-19 were carried out and of these 1,466 were positive, a rate of 3.3 per cent.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said: “We are continuing to examine the progress of the disease and though we are still making progress, which is giving us real encouragement, we need to keep going. We still have 70 people in ICU and over 500 people in hospital. We have more work to do. ”
Earlier the latest HSE figures showed the number of confirmed and suspected hospitalizations over coronavirus has increased.
As of 8pm on Monday evening there were 826 patients hospitalized over coronavirus, 529 patients were hospitalized with confirmed cases while 297 were suspected cases.
On Sunday there were 791 patients in hospital over coronavirus; 545 confirmed cases and 246 suspected cases. The latest HSE report shows Dublin hospitals have the highest number of confirmed cases on site with the Mater hospital having 79, followed by Tallaght Hospital (69), St James’s Hospital (62) and Beaumont Hospital (51). University Hospital Limerick has the highest number of confirmed cases outside of Dublin with 47 and has the highest number of suspected cases in the countryat 67, followed by St James’s Hospital (37) and Letterkenny Hospital at 18.
Testing and tracing
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has called for the turnaround time for Covid-19 testing and contact tracing to be “considerably shortened” as they are key elements in the reopening of society.
When asked about the statistics for Covid-19 in other countries Mr Martin said he was not one for pillorying others, but that lessons could be learned from other countries.
“We are not where we need to be yet for the reopening of the economy,” I told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny Show on Tuesday morning.
The median time from referring a person for a test to sending the result for contact tracing is five days, according to David Walsh, HSE national director of community operations.
The average time taken to then trace all the contacts of a confirmed case is four days, Mr Walsh told a National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) briefing, although “straightforward” cases are dealt with more quickly.
Mr Walsh said this was “an improving figure” and would shorten with the automation of the process in relation to negative results.
Prof Mary Codd, an epidemiologist at University College Dublin (UCD) and head of the contact tracing center on the campus, said it was vital test results for Covid-19 were turned around within 48 hours by the time people return to work next week.
The entire testing process must come to within 48 hours, or certainly no longer than 72, in order to cut out the spread of the virus in the population, she said. “Otherwise actually we are likely to be looking at these sporadic outbreaks that may not be able to be contained.”
The process of sampling, testing, communication of results to a positive case, contact tracing and quarantine of contacts needs to be done within 72 hours, immunologist Dr Tomas Ryan of Trinity College Dublin has also said.
The Mental Health Commission said on Monday that mental health services in Cork and Kerry, and south Dublin, were awaiting test results from up to two weeks ago, while services in the northwest, southeast and south Dublin / Kildare were waiting more than a week.
On Monday, the president of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), Dr Mary Favier, said last month test turnaround times were often more than two weeks.
Mr Walsh said the HSE’s target for testing turnaround times was “three days or below”. By the end of this week, the time it takes should be down to four days and process improvements would then be undertaken to reduce it further.
The figure could also be improved if people experiencing symptoms responded earlier by seeking a test, according to Dr Holohan. He said an average of four days passed between the time a person experienced symptoms consistent with Covid-19 and the time a sample was taken.
Department of Health Study
Meanwhile, World Health Organization (WHO) spokeswoman Dr Margaret Harris has said that all countries need to ramp up their Covid-19 testing and contact tracing as they are essential parts of the puzzle of coping with the virus.
Dr Harris told RTÉ’s Today program that masks were not the chief protection against the virus and the WHO had not said that they should be compulsory.
Asked about research conducted for the Department of Health which indicated that 43 per cent of the Irish population believed the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic is over, she said the virus can continue to do “very, very bad things to us” if the public does not heed the warnings the virus has sent ”.
While staying at home was important, everyone would now have to learn to live in a new way that stops the virus from causing harm. Good overall hygiene, proper hand washing and social distancing continued to be important methods of protection, she said.
Minister for Health Simon Harris has said he is “very concerned” about the Department of Health’s study. “I very much get it, this is something that’s been with us for quite a period of time,” I told the Dermot and Dave Show on Today FM on Tuesday. “We’ve seen a lot of progress made by people around the country, and as a result the country is in a much better place with this virus than it could have been. The Irish people have saved thousands of lives. However, that doesn’t mean that anybody can say that we’re through the worst of it because quite frankly, an awful lot is still not known about this virus. We need to mark the progress because we all need hope, but we can’t get a bit cocksure of ourselves because that would be really dangerous. ” Mr Harris said he is hopeful about the easing of restrictions some of which are being lifted next Monday but
said the next few weeks and months will depend on a lot of individual behavior. He said he is concerned about “some anticipatory behavior in advance of next week. If we start getting ahead of ourselves, the risk is that we’ll put the whole plan in jeopardy. ”
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