There are higher levels of Covid-19 circulating in the community than recent case numbers reflect, the country’s chief medical officer has said.
Dr Tony Holohan said he expects a large increase in case numbers over the coming days, due to the lower volume of tests being carried out over Christmas.
It comes as 744 new cases of the disease were confirmed last night, along with four further deaths. On Saturday, there were 1,296 new cases recorded in the Republic – the highest daily increase since the pandemic began in March.
“Due to the lower volume of tests being carried out over Christmas Day and yesterday, we believe there are higher levels of disease circulating in the community than today’s reported case numbers reflect,” Dr Holohan said.
“We expect, therefore, to see a large increase in cases reported over the coming days.”
We don’t know where the infections are coming from
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It comes as Professor Anthony Staines of DCU said the Republic’s pandemic response has two “glaring holes,” regarding importation of the virus from travel and contact tracing.
“We haven’t responded to the threat of importation of the virus from abroad so we don’t have any working quarantine or isolation systems at airports and ports,” he said.
“And the other has been, that we really haven’t put the resources into what I would think of as professional-quality contact tracing.
“We still don’t know why most people who get infected, get infected. We don’t know where the infections are coming from.”
Next few days
Prof Staines said the R number, which indicates the average number of people likely to be infected by a confirmed case, cannot be allowed to rise further.
“We’d like it to be under 1, because that would suggest the infection rates are going down,” he said.
“It was going up very quickly and it has now slowed. Hopefully that’s not related to reporting delays over Christmas but we’ll find out in the next few days what our position is.
“The fear in the Republic certainly is that if we keep getting this number of cases, our hospital systems will fill up.”
Dr Holohan has warned of a “significant increase” in the number of hospital admissions due to Covid-19 in recent weeks, with the number of people admitted to hospital with the virus jumping from less than 190 two weeks ago to 324 on Sunday.
Ireland's national 14-day incidence rate has now risen to 209.6 according to the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet), as the rates of each county have jumped in line with rising daily case numbers.
The head of the HSE, Paul Reid, has said the Covid-19 community positivity rate from testing is now at 10 per cent.
It comes as the HSE has announced it will start Covid-19 vaccination a day earlier than planned, with Ireland set to be the third-last country in the EU to begin giving the shots as the HSE grapples with staff training.
