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The rise in coronavirus infections among older people was a “serious concern,” as four times more people over 65 have contracted the disease than five weeks ago, state health officials said.
Professor Philip Nolan, chair of NPHET’s Irish Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group, issued stern warnings about the impact of rising infection rates in recent weeks.
“This week, sadly, we are seeing continued increases in all disease metrics,” he said in a briefing by the National Public Health Emergency Team.
He said it was “concerning” to report one or two daily admissions of people with Covid-19 to intensive care units and seven new hospital admissions on average over the past week. There were 95 people in the hospital with Covid-19 on Wednesday and 16 in ICU units.
Most of the people admitted to the ICU were under 65 and “some are young,” he said.
There has also been an increase in deaths this month as a result of the increase in infections with one to three deaths per day on average reported in the last two weeks.
“We started mixing more than was safe and in an unsafe way several weeks ago and the transmissions that happened then are catching up with us now,” said Professor Nolan.
NPHET reported two more deaths from Covid-19, bringing the death toll to 1,794 and 234 new cases of the disease, bringing the total number of known cases to 33,675.
Approximately 68% of the new cases were in people under 45 years of age.
There were 103 new cases in Dublin, or 44 percent of the new cases announced yesterday, 30 in Donegal, 22 in Galway, 21 in Cork, 13 in Wicklow, 12 in Louth, nine in Kildare and eight in Meath.
Stabilization
Professor Nolan said it was “too early” to say that the spread of the disease had leveled off with the 14-day cumulative infection rate not increasing as fast as it did over the past week.
It would be several more days “or maybe another week” before it could be seen if the additional restrictions announced for Dublin last week were having any effect, he said.
NPHET will meet on Thursday, but Acting State Medical Director Dr. Glynn would not speculate whether public health officials would recommend moving other counties where infections were high up to the Level 3 public restrictions currently imposed in Dublin.
“We are moving towards a second chapter, a particularly difficult time for the country because everyone is fed up and tired of this at this stage and the idea of restricting measures, reducing our social contacts, is frankly horrible for people,” he said Dr. Glynn.
It featured specific warnings about rising infection rates in Donegal, Louth and Waterford, along with parts of North Wicklow and East Kildare bordering Dublin.
“If we all cut our contacts in half, we will have a huge impact on the spread of this disease across the country,” he said.
Professor Nolan said that the incidence rate in Dublin is still three to four times higher than in the rest of the country, but is growing at roughly the same rate across the country.
“The rest of the country may be a week or two behind Dublin, but it will catch up unless behaviors across the country change,” he said.
Dr Glynn said the country faced a “significant challenge” with the reopening of tertiary institutions, as public health officials rejected the opinion of Sweden’s former chief epidemiologist Dr Johan Giesecke at the Oireachtas Covid -19, that there should be a “controlled spread” among those under 60 years and a “tolerable spread” of the virus in those over 60 years.
HSE Clinical Director Dr. Colm Henry said that it was not possible to keep nursing homes and older congregated settings completely immune to a virus that is openly spreading through the community. It also ignored the long-term effect of Covid-19 on younger infected people, he said.
Professor Nolan said it would also result in the death of some young people.
Incidence rate
Earlier, it was learned that Dublin’s 14-day incidence rate of coronavirus infections has fallen for the first time in two weeks, according to the latest figures released by the Center for Health Protection Surveillance.
The rate of Covid-19 infections during the period dropped marginally in Dublin, from 138 cases per 100,000 at midnight on Sunday to 136.9 at midnight on Monday, three days after the new Tier restrictions were introduced. 3 in the county, while the rest of the country remained at Level 2.
This is the first time that the infection rate in Dublin has decreased since September 8.
Within Dublin, the disease incidence rate fell below 200 cases per 100,000 in northwest Dublin, dropping to 196.9 cases from 204.7 in the 24-hour period.
Also, the rate in south-east Dublin fell to 143.9 cases per 100,000 from 150.4. However, the rate in Dublin West continued to rise, rising to 148.1 cases per 100,000 from 140.3.
While the incidence rate in Dublin dropped slightly in the latest figures, the national average continues to rise, reflecting an increase in infections outside the capital.
The national rate of infections during the last 14 days stood at 70.7 cases per 100,000, compared to 70.4 24 hours earlier.
Infectious disease expert Professor Sam McConkey highlighted the importance of people following public health advice and said if cases continued to rise, Dublin might need to move to Level 4 or even Level 5
Professor McConkey, Head of the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland (RCSI), said it was time to act.
“The sooner we do it, the shorter the duration and the less restrictive those measures will have to be,” he told Newstalk.
The Covid-19 case rate had risen in four to five counties to nearly the same level as Dublin and action is now required, he added.
“Unfortunately, if the number of cases continues to rise, whether in Dublin or in those counties, the only sensible thing to do is go up to Level 4 or even Level 5.”
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