9,005 new Covid cases with positivity rate at highest level since pandemic began
Days Figures With In Up Latest Disease, Hospitalised Hse Two Now 100 Almost The People Are 521 From Show The
A further 9,005 cases of Covid-19 have been reported in Ireland, the Department of Health has said.
The number of people being treated in Irish hospitals for Covid-19 has increased by 60 in the past 24 hours.
Latest figures from the HSE show 521 people are now hospitalised with the disease, up almost 100 in two days.
Of those, 92 were in intensive care units, a rise of one in 24-hours.
The testing system remains under severe strain today where, again, there is not a single booking in the country available online to get a PCR test.
In the past day, a further 24,940 tests were completed according to data on the Covid dashboard. A further 10,853 positive swabs were returned, bringing a positivity rate of 43.52%.
The positivity rate in the last seven days is the highest it’s been at any stage of the pandemic so far, at 30.5%. This means that almost one in every three PCR tests conducted in the past week has returned a positive result.
In the first wave of Covid-19 in March 2020 and during the surge 2021, the seven-day positivity rate did not rise above 25%.
Over 223,000 PCR tests have been conducted in the past week.
On the other hand, the HSE is reporting little to no queues at vaccination centres across the country as people aged 40 and over are eligible to receive their booster.
As of this lunchtime, there is no queue at City Hall in Cork, the West County Hotel in Ennis, the Abbeycourt Hotel in Tipperary, as well as centres in Roscommon, Offaly, Kilkenny and Meath.
The public has been urged to come forward to get their booster as soon as they’re in line to receive one to help mitigate the risks arising from the spread of the Omicron variant.
People aged 30 to 39 will be eligible for their booster from tomorrow.
You can get your booster at a walk-in clinic, at a participating pharmacy or GP, or by booking a time slot for a centre online.
The HSE chief executive has admitted that the Omicron variant is “rampant” and “running rife” in the community.
The reality is that the sheer volume of cases meant that the PCR testing service is being overwhelmed, Paul Reid told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
“There is no doubt now that the virus is absolutely running rife in our communities. If you think that you have Covid, it's most likely that you have it”, he said.
Mr Reid said that they are now seeing up to 50% positivity rates in the community.
According to the Covid-19 GeoHive, of the 13,149 swabs administered yesterday, 6,735 returned a positive test result - a positivity rate of 49.7%.
Extra capacity is being introduced for testing, he said. The number of tests being carried out is now at 300,000 and up to 400,000 antigen tests are also being sent out.
If anyone is a close contact or experiencing symptoms, they should immediately self-isolate while they wait for a test.
“The simple message is, if you think you have the virus, avoid gatherings with people.” Mr Reid said that at present 250,000 PCR tests were being carried out.
The testing service is working through cases on the basis of priority – those referred by GPs, close contacts and those with positive antigen test results.
Mr Reid stated that antigen testing is now “a core part of the process,” but that ultimately a PCR test is the one that determined infection.
He warned that in other countries that were a few weeks ahead of Ireland they appeared to have reached a peak, but in Ireland we are still at the early stages of the curve of Omicron.
The variant is five times more transmissible than Delta and was accelerating.
Mr Reid said hospital numbers are holding stable at present, with the level of admissions the same as during the Delta wave. Howver, Mr Reid did say that he is concerned about the lag effect which could see more hospitalisations to come.
He said there are early signs of hope from GPs that the Omicron variant is not as severe an illness, but this could be just among those who were vaccinated and had received their booster vaccine.
Staffing levels in the health service were down from 6,000 absences to 4,000 absences in recent weeks, but the concern was that the Omicron wave was yet to come.
Mr Reid appealed to the public to protect themselves, their family and the community which in turn would protect healthcare workers.
Waiting list numbers had held in December, but difficult decisions could be ahead if hospital beds began to fill quickly after Christmas, according to Mr Reid.
On a positive note, two million booster/third doses of the vaccine have been administered.
The vaccine campaign for children aged five years to 11 years will open for registration today with appointments being issued later in the week and vaccinations commencing on January 3 for those in high categories and those living with family members who were high risk.
Mr Reid added that there is very good video information on the HSE website so parents could show their children what was involved and what the experience would be like.
Immunology expert Professor Luke O’Neill has called on the public “to keep banging the drum” and to “get down on bended knee” to appeal to people who have not yet been vaccinated to do so.
Speaking on the Late Breakfast show with Clare McKenna on Newstalk radio, Prof O’Neill said “we’ve got to help them change their minds.”
There were now five different vaccines against Covid, he explained, one of which Novavox, had been developed using “old style” technology which addressed concerns about the new technology expressed by some people who were opposed to vaccination.
The virus was still rampant around the world, he said. It had been the Alpha variant at Christmas 2020 and Omicron at Christmas 2021, it could be Omega next year which highlighted the need for people to adhere to public health measures.
Prof. O’Neill said there was hope that the Omicron variant did not lead to the same level of hospitalisations as Delta. The year 2021 would go down as the year of discovering the vaccine while 2022 would be the year of optimising the vaccine.
The only way to stop the virus “ruining” next Christmas was to get the world vaccinated. Vaccines were working. The next step was to develop vaccines that stop transmission. The current crop of vaccines work on the lungs, the new vaccines would work on the nose. There were 120 new vaccines in development among which would be vaccines that would work against any variant.
When it came to Covid figures in hospitals, Prof O’Neill pointed out that a person could be hospitalised for a broken leg and then tested positive for Covid. That was “incidental” Covid, that person was not in hospital because of Covid.
Prof O’Neill added that his laboratory in Trinity College Dublin was working on three Covid projects. He pointed out that there were studies going on all around the world into anti-inflammatories, antivirals – some of which would decrease the risk of hospitalisation by 90%.