A further 3,428 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in the State.
On Sunday morning there were 478 Covid patients in hospital, of which 75 were being treated in ICU.
This comes as the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said he expects antigen testing for close contacts to be used in primary schools before Christmas.
As reported in The Irish Times, Mr Donnelly said he is involved is an “ongoing conversation” with Minister for Education Norma Foley and Dr Tony Holohan about the use of rapid testing for contact tracing in primary schools.
Speaking to Newstalk, Mr Donnelly commented that that contact tracing in primary schools had been stopped “in the interest” of students.
“The data is showing very clearly that there is infection and the vast majority of that infection is happening in households. It is not happening in the schools,” he said
“What was happening was that kids were being taken out of school for ten days at a time which is obviously very damaging.
“The infection rates are going up. All of the data says they are not going up because of infections in the schools. The schools are low risk environments.
“In fact the recent surge in cases we have seen in those from 12 to 25 from a time perspective it is actually linked to the mid term.What we have seen consistently is that when students are in school cases are lower than when are out and about. That is the socialisation.
“Critically we are looking at how rapid testing can be used for contact tracing in the schools. There has been a call for rapid testing to be used, and it is something we are looking at deploying.”
Mr Donnelly also mentioned that new European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) guidelines involve looking at testing within pods or if you get “a certain number of positive tests within a classroom you can test within the classroom.”
Booster vaccines
Speaking about the booster campaign, the Minister for Health said that “we are ramping up again” to 200,000 vaccines a week.
According to Mr Donnelly, Niac’s advice is that a period of five months should pass before the booster vaccine is administered.
“We are moving very quickly. We are following the best clinical advice. There is a minimum gap of five months required, and we are targeting 1.3 to 1.4 million people.”
However, he warned that the State cannot fall into a “seductive notion” that boosters are the answer to everything.
“That is not the case. But there is a lot more has to happen. Flu vaccines, industry really needs to play its part in terms of compliance with Covid passes and each one of us individually we all have a role to play.”
