Covid 'hasn’t gone away' as hospitalisations rise and 21,098 cases confirmed
As Washing Wearing "rekindle Ie Mask And Hand Habits" Public Sam People Health Urged Picture: To Have Old Such Been Boal/rollingnews
There is a need for the public to be sensible and responsible about public health measures to combat the current rise in Covid-19 cases, a leading medic has said.
The chair of the Irish Medical Organisation’s GP committee, Dr Denis McCauley, said that doctors were seeing a surge in Covid cases with some people getting quite ill.
Today, a further 21,098 cases have been confirmed by the Department of Health.
There were 7,038 PCR-confirmed cases of Covid and 14,060 positive antigen tests were reported through the HSE portal.
Meanwhile, the number of people in hospital and in intensive care has been rising.
Some 1,395 people were recorded as being in hospital with the virus on Wednesday, the highest number it has been at since February 2021. It is a rise of 56 on yesterday's figure. Of these, 55 are in intensive care - down six since yesterday.
Dr McCauley said that there was a problem and it needed to be recognised. Thinking needed to be changed “subtly” initially, he told RTÉ radio’s .
The public needed to be advised to wear masks in settings where there were groups of people and to maintain social distance and continue to wash hands.
He added that public health measures worked, warning: “This hasn’t gone away, it’s coming back”.
“Let’s be sensible, simple public health measures should be recommended again.”
People had been hoping the virus would go away, that hasn’t happened so now action needed to be taken, he said.
“We are a little bit in denial.”
Politicians did not want to be seen as the bearers of bad news, but there was nothing wrong with being sensible and responsible, he said, adding: “We need to rekindle old public health habits.”
It comes as the head of the HSE said that the health service is awaiting advice from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) to start dispensing a fourth dose of the vaccine to older and vulnerable people.
“We’re ready, we haven’t dismantled the structures”, Paul Reid told Newstalk.
Mr Reid defended Niac saying that it had served the country well during the pandemic with its advice on timing and sequencing. Ireland had done very well because of the advice from Niac and the HSE must act on the best evidence.
He added that it was really important that the 720,000 people who had not yet received their booster because they had Covid do so now. Mr Reid also encouraged parents to have their children vaccinated as it had been proven that the vaccine provided the best protection against serious illness from the virus.
He added that a "perfect storm" of high Covid cases, emergency department attendances, and staff absences are affecting hospitals.
The Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation (INMO) yesterday said that staff are exhausted as it reported the highest number of patients on trolleys since the beginning of the pandemic.
It has called for people to continue to wear masks in shops and indoor settings.
"ESRI research published today shows that two-thirds of people are still wearing masks on public transport and when shopping. If we could increase this number through a re-introduction of mask-wearing, it would help ease transmission numbers" INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha.
"Our nurses and midwives are burnt out and exhausted. We can’t expect them to be able to provide safe care in environments that are overcrowded while dealing with a highly transmissible airborne virus."
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said Ireland is among a number of countries that lifted Covid restrictions "brutally".