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About 15 percent, or about 100,000 people, with appointments for Covid-19 sampling have not come forward for testing since the start of the pandemic, official figures show.
According to Niamh O’Beirne, the national HSE leader for testing and tracking, there is no data available on canceled appointments. The 15 percent figure only refers to people who did not show up for appointments nationwide.
Ms. O’Beirne was responding to Cork East TD for Labor, Sean Sherlock, who said, “These numbers support the importance of attending all swab appointments and following public health advice when considering a close contact.
“The news of a vaccine is welcome, but it has not yet become the silver bullet. More than 100,000 people have not kept appointments. That is a devastating number.”
Sherlock said anecdotal evidence from contact trackers of people not answering calls when contacted is also concerning.
“If this is true, then contact tracing services should record failed attempts to reach people to create a real-time image so that the effectiveness of the system can be measured,” he said.
Greater capacity
According to a breakdown of appointments kept by community health organizations, the number of people who had shown up for appointments stood at more than 595,000 as of this week.
The HSE data center on Covid-19 shows that 74,900 tests were conducted in the seven days through last Wednesday. The current positivity rate is 3.6 percent.
Last month, Ms. O’Beirne said in response to Sinn Féin TD, Rose Conway Walsh, that in non-attendance cases, those people are contacted and offered another test date.
She added: “We would not keep the figures, we do not have the metrics, for those who were retested as to whether or not Covid was detected.”
There are 37 testing centers across the country, while most also offer a self-service service. The test itself takes about 15 minutes, according to the HSE.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said there is now capacity to test 126,000 people per week, which can be increased to 140,000 per week using the augmentation capacity available with the German HSE partner laboratory.
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