NPHET warns 2,000 people could be in hospital with Covid-19 by the end of January if Ireland fails to combat the third wave

UP TO 2,000 people could be hospitalized with Covid-19 by the end of the month if Ireland fails to combat the third wave of the pandemic, one of NPHET’s top experts warned.

It occurs when the health service has been forced to stop testing close contacts, as the increase in cases during the Christmas holidays threatens to overwhelm our testing system.

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At a grim press conference on New Year’s Eve, Medical Director Dr. Tony Holohan pleaded with the public to isolate themselves to save lives while the vaccine is being released.

He said: “People know what to do and they know when they are not following that advice.

“We have seen examples in some of the contact tracing information with people who identified between 20 and 30 positive close contacts, clearly not following public health advice in any way, maybe going to parties or other gatherings, they should know.

“At this moment, everyone in the country knows the situation in which we find ourselves and to the point of vaccination; As a society, we are going to allow vulnerable people to be exposed to a virus that they should not necessarily be exposed to, yes. Can they do it right, just as we are about to offer them the vaccine?

“Many people in vulnerable groups were not only waiting, they were probably praying for the advent of the vaccines that we have now seen and are coming.

“At this point, as a society, we owe it to them not to let it go to the point that they contract an infection, which means that they are no longer there to benefit from being vaccinated and protected.”

SYSTEM FIGHT

The CMO urged people to pretend they have the virus and isolate themselves and only leave their home for exercise within 5 km or essential work.

Today some 1,620 new cases of Covid were detected in Ireland and 12 more people lost their lives to the virus.

This brings the death toll in the pandemic to 2,237 out of a total of 91,779 cases.

However, Professor Philip Nolan, NPHET’s chief modeling expert, warned tonight that up to 4,000 cases have been detected in recent days that have yet to be registered in the official tally.

He said the system is struggling to keep up with the number of positive tests and “was not designed to detect two, three or four thousand positive tests per day.”

The increase in positive cases has caused the health service to be forced to stop testing close contacts of positive cases.

Dr. Holohan said that if they continued testing close contacts, he would have added 53,000 more people to the testing list today.

People who test positive will be asked about their close contacts and these contacts will receive text messages from the HSE asking them to restrict their movements for 14 days.

However, due to a significant increase in the number of consulted Covid cases that are presented to your GP, only symptomatic cases of the virus will be analyzed over the next several weeks.

‘MITIGATION PHASE’

Previously, one in five close contacts would test positive for the virus, meaning that daily case numbers in the coming days may not be as accurate as they have been with cases that go undetected.

Dr Holohan said that Ireland has moved from the “containment phase” of the pandemic to the “mitigation phase” due to uncontrollable community transmission of the virus.

This wild spread of the virus has caused an increase in the number of people admitted to the hospital due to Covid-19.

Tonight, there are 490 people suffering from Covid-19 in our hospitals with 42 people in the ICU.

Some 58 people were admitted to the hospital in the 24 hours leading up to today’s press conference, with an average of 43 people being admitted to the hospital every day due to the coronavirus.

Professor Philip Nolan said that the virus’s reproduction rate is currently between 1.6 and 1.8 and described the strong impact this rate could have on our hospitals if the country does not stop the spread.

He predicted that at best, the third wave will peak in seven to 10 days with about 1,800 cases per day.

‘INTOLERABLE SITUATION’

If the nation as a whole fights the R number below one, we will still see between 700 and 1,000 people hospitalized with the virus in mid-January.

However, if the R number only drops to 1.4, Ireland will see 2,000 cases per day on January 9 and 3,000 by the 23rd.

He said that if the country fails to combat the spread, the health service will face the “intolerable situation” of between 1,500 and 2,000 people hospitalized with the virus by the end of the month.

HSE Clinical Director Dr. Colm Henry said non-Covid services are now under threat due to the level of the virus in the community.

He said that with the spread in the community at such a high level, it will be impossible to keep the virus out of hospitals where outbreaks will lead to closed wards and canceled surgeries.

It comes as 2,000 doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine have been shipped to Co Cork hospitals, where front-line workers will receive the vaccine over the weekend.

This will be followed by a larger rollout of the vaccine in 15 hospitals across the country next week.

Residents and staff of 23 nursing homes are also receiving the vaccines this week and the jab will be shipped to 150 more homes on January 11.

In total, Ireland’s vaccination team will give the injection to 20,000 people next week.

Professor Karina Butler, chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization tonight, said at the press conference that the European Medicines Agency will approve Moderna vaccines on January 6 before discussing the jab that has already received the green light in the UK. .

Dr Tony Holohan also revealed tonight that the British variant of Covid-19 has been detected more in Ireland.

Out of a total of 92 random positive cases in Ireland, nine tested positive for the UK strain which, according to experts in England, is more easily transmissible.