Number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care rises to two-month high

The number of patients with Covid-19 in intensive care has risen to its highest level since early August.

There were 22 Covid patients in ICU on Thursday and 25 on Wednesday, compared to 17 last Thursday. Covid is the main reason for admission in less than half of ICU cases where the virus is detected.

Overall, most indicators for the virus are either stable or declining slightly. The number of Covid patients in hospital remains stable at 440 on Thursday, compared to 442 a week earlier.

Overall, hospitals remain under pressure, with 549 patients on trolleys on Thursday morning and children’s hospitals in particular struggling with a rise in respiratory cases.

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Barely more than one-third of these cases involve Covid as the main reason for hospitalisation, according to the most recent data.

The positivity rate for PCR tests, an indicator of the amount of infection in the community, dropped from 13.8 per cent to 13.1 per cent in the week to Thursday.

The deaths of 33 people with Covid were reported in the week up to last Tuesday, the highest figure in over a month.

The number of PCR-confirmed cases fell over 8 per cent last week, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, while the number of self-reported antigen cases was stable.

Highest incidence

Offaly, Carlow and Sligo had the highest incidence of the disease, while Monaghan, Donegal and Roscommon had the lowest.

While the BA.5 subvariant of Omicron continues to be dominant in Ireland, other variants of concern are establishing a foothold, the latest report by chief medical officer Prof Breda Smyth shows.

It notes that 82 cases of BA.2.75, 136 cases of BF.7 and 59 cases of BQ.1 have been identified in Ireland through whole genome sequencing. The proportion of BQ.1 cases has increased in recent weeks.

Prof Smyth said there continued to be a significant number of hospital-acquired Covid infections – 154 in the week ending October 9th.

There were just 49 free beds in the hospital system on Wednesday, and nine hospitals had no free beds, according to the HSE.

Just five adult ICU beds, and no paediatric ICU beds, were free, its latest operations report shows. Only one of the 31 children in ICU had Covid-19, indicating that the pressure is being driven by other winter viruses.