Up to 15,000 people per day referred for testing as Covid surge takes hold

AS MUCH AS 15,000 people with Covid-19 symptoms are being referred for testing per day, and the HSE CEO is warning that the virus is “rampant” across the country.

Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Paul Reid warned of significant challenges facing the health service as widespread community transmission of the virus takes hold across the country.

He added that 25,000 people are expected to be vaccinated by the end of next week.

“I have no doubt that 2021 will be a much brighter year [than 2020]”He told the show, describing the start as” not very good. ”

What we’ve definitely seen is a whole set of worst-case scenarios coming together. The virus is absolutely rampant in the community.

Everyone is at extremely high risk of contracting the virus. We really need our vulnerable groups to be on higher guard.

Reid said case numbers are likely to reach 3,000 a day, but a legacy computer system used to record cases cannot manage the volume of cases that labs are now processing.

The decision to stop testing close contacts of confirmed cases to ease pressure on the system was not an indication that the testing regimen had failed, he said.

As of mid-December, the HSE contacted some 9,000 contacts per week. 13,000 were contacted yesterday alone, and Reid said testing should be reserved for the most symptomatic among them.

Instead, close contacts are asked to restrict their movements for 14 days and to contact their GP if they have symptoms.

Also speaking this morning, HSE Clinical Director Colm Henry said the system used to record cases had been “overwhelmed” but emphasized that this had no impact on those diagnosed with the virus and contact tracing.

He told Today with Katie Hannon that the number of general practitioner referrals for symptomatic people now exceeds 15,000 a day, putting the testing regimen under significant strain.

The average number of close contacts per confirmed case is now 6.3, with some counties registering a positivity rate of close to 30%.

He urged the public to act as if “everyone you meet may have the virus.”

“We are concerned at the moment, based on the patterns that we are seeing, we are projecting with a fairly conservative estimate that we will see approximately 1,200 hospital admissions with Covid and perhaps 2,000 by the end of January.” Henry cautioned, emphasizing that these trends could change with Level 5 restrictions, although there is a delay.

Frankly, it is unthinkable that not all of us will adhere to these [Level 5] measures because we can’t let that scenario unfold.

The pressure is mounting on the public health system with this increase in cases and more people developing serious illnesses, but there is still capacity, Paul Reid said:

We are still handling it. Private hospitals are supporting us in terms of other activities, services that support us, so there is a full set of supports that they are giving us right now, and we are very grateful for them.

In fact, we are still in discussions with them about whether we need more response capacity and we hope to reach an agreement with the private hospitals on that.

Progress is being made with vaccination, despite this new increase. Of the 2,000 doses distributed to four hospitals in recent days, more than 1,800 have been administered.

That number is expected to reach 25,000 by the end of next year, as the rollout expands to nursing homes and all hospital groups as new doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are delivered.