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There were 765 new cases of Covid-19 and one further death reported by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) on Monday evening.
In a statement marking the release of the latest figures, chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan warned that the number of people being hospitalised due to Covid-19 had “increased sharply” in the last two days.
“This is a concerning trend which reflects the sharp increase [in] incidence we saw in the last 10 days,” he said.
There were 359 Covid-19 patients in the State’s hospitals as of 2pm on Monday, with 41 admitted in the past 24 hours. Some 30 Covid-19 patients were in intensive care, with five admitted in the last day.
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“We have now exceeded the cumulative number of people hospitalised in this third wave than in the second,” Dr Holohan said.
Of the 765 new cases reported on Monday, 291 were located in Co Dublin, followed by 63 in Co Cork, 59 in Co Monaghan, 49 in Co Louth and 43 in Co Meath. The remaining 260 cases were spread across all other counties.
Dr Holohan said public health officials were seeing a “steep rise in the positivity rates” from community testing, a key metric indicating how prevalent the virus was within the general population.
The current seven-day average rate of positive tests had risen to 9.2 per cent, up from 5.2 per cent on December 18th.
Dr Holohan also noted that the figures “we are reporting today are lower than days up to December 26th. This, however, results from factors related to the time of the year, such as the lower rates of attendance and referrals and presentation for testing for several days over Christmas.”
New lab tests
Earlier, the HSE’s chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry said there was a record number of new lab tests for Covid-19 in the State just before Christmas at 23,000 on December 23rd.
He said contact tracing had also seen a “big, big” increase from 9,000 cases per week to more than 30,000 per week from December 22nd.
“All this shows the virus is very active out there in the community and it’s replicating – there are multiple outbreaks and we see also the arrival of this new strain from London and the southeast of England which is now the dominant strain there,” he said.
Dr Henry said that based on the current growth rate, “if this continues unmitigated without any change in the sharp upcurve that we’re seeing we will certainly see large numbers of cases which inevitably will translate into hospitalisations, occupancy of intensive care units and unfortunately death”.
He told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland that there has been a sharp rise in the admission in acute hospitals in the past week and those becoming sick with Covid within acute hospitals.
He said the other side of the story was the large number of empty beds, 1,467, as of Sunday night, and a sharp decrease in the trolleys as compared with this time last year.
“What is happening is one of the few unexpected bonuses of this pandemic is we’ve seen no lab recorded influenza cases to date this year. We’ve seen a sharp decrease in other seasonal viruses to the extent that other non-Covid illnesses are not presenting in the volumes we would usually expect around the Christmas period,” he added.
Vaccination programme
Dr Henry also defended the pace of the Covid vaccination programme in the State, saying it was not a question of speed, but a question of safety. There was a need to demonstrate that the programme was being rolled out safely, he said. As other vaccines are approved the pace of the programme will increase, he explained. The first vaccines are due to be given on Tuesday, although some other European countries began inoculations on Sunday.
The behaviour of the public remained the primary factor in controlling the spread of the virus, he said. Dr Henry urged people to reduce their number of contacts and to follow public health advice.
On Sunday it emerged that Nphet believes the disease is circulating at a higher rate than the numbers reflect.
Dr Holohan said on Sunday that Nphet believes “there are higher levels of disease circulating in the community than today’s reported numbers reflect”.
“We expect, therefore, to see a large increase in cases reported over the coming days,” he added.