Flu and Covid-19 combine to put health service under ‘unprecedented’ pressure

The health service is coming under unprecedented pressure from surges in flu, Covid and other respiratory viruses in the run-up to Christmas.

This winter is shaping up to be as bad for influenza as 2019/20, when a surge in cases resulted in record overcrowding and widespread cancellation of non-urgent work in hospitals.

This time, in addition to a very similar flu trend, Covid infections are rising again while RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), which mostly affects young children, remains near record levels.

On Saturday, 272 out of 277 open ICU beds were occupied, according to the HSE. There were no free children’s ICU beds, with the system showing that of 27 open paediatric ICU beds, 29 were occupied.

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In anticipation of a surge in respiratory viruses, the HSE has told hospitals to schedule less routine work after Christmas than normal, so as to lessen the impact on the wider health service.

Flu cases increased by 80 per cent in the week to last Saturday, chief medical officer Prof Breda Smyth pointed out at the weekend.

Hospitalisations rose by 68 per cent on the previous week, with some flu patients ending up in intensive care. Prof Smyth noted that none of the flu patients in ICU had received the flu vaccine.

Cases of RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) also remain high, with 665 cases last week and 248 hospitalisations.

Severe flu, while mostly impacting the old, is affecting more younger patients than usual this year, while RSV is affecting a higher proportion of older patients than usual.

Meanwhile, the number of patients in hospital with Covid has risen to its highest level since July. There were 556 hospitalised patients with the virus on Sunday, up from 372 just a week earlier.

Only about one-third of hospitalised patients are there specifically because of the virus, but the increase is indicative of a rise in infections, both in the community and in hospitals.

The proportion of cases confirmed by PCR test is also rising rapidly, in another indication of increasing levels of infection in the community. The seven-day positivity rate reached 18.2 per cent on Friday, up about one-third in a week.

However, the number of Covid patients in ICU remains stable and is about as low as it has been at any point during the pandemic. There were 12 patients with Covid in intensive care on Sunday.

The latest surge in Covid cases may be the result of a rise in cases involving the BQ. 1 subvariant, which is adept at escaping immune protection. BQ. 1 now accounts for more than half of cases genetically sequenced in Ireland, according to the latest update from Prof Smyth.

However, data from the European Centre for Disease Control show that while in some countries where BQ. 1 is dominant are showing increases in transmission of the Covid, in others with the highest proportions of BQ. 1, there have been no concerning changes to date.

So far this year, 4,666 flu cases have been recorded, compared to just 16 in the same period in 2021, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.

A total of 909,728 Covid cases have been recorded, up over 385,000.

There were seven cases of invasive strep A bacterial infection in the week to December 10th. So far this year, there have been 62 cases of invasive strep A, compared to 33 last year.

Prof Smyth advised people to get the flu and Covid vaccines, and to stay at home if they have flu-like symptoms.