The chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team's (Nphet) Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, Professor Philip Nolan has warned that it could be more than six weeks before the number of Covid-19 cases drops to fewer than 100 a day.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, he said while case numbers and hospitalisations had reduced recently, the numbers were still too high.
Yesterday, 866 new cases of Covid-19 were reported to the Department of Health and 52 additional deaths, while there are now 959 patients with the virus in hospital, of which 167 are in Intensive Care Units according to the latest figures from the HSE.
The bottom line, Prof Nolan said, was that as people collectively drove case numbers down, it would give the Government options to reopen key priority sectors.
Suppressing the virus and increasing protection from the vaccine would come together, he added, and the key priorities were the education of young people and ensuring the health service had minimum levels of Covid cases to deal with.
“Last week by every indicator we had more disease and more severe disease than at any point in 2020. We still have 170 people in ICU- that is an extraordinarily high number,” Prof Nolan said.
Ireland should be at around 200-400 cases a day heading into March and approaching 100-200 cases a day by the end of March, he said.
Meanwhile, the HSE says the levels of Covid-19 are still 100 times higher than last July, but the figures are heading in the right direction.
HSE chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry said Ireland's five-day moving average of 848 is still four times higher than it was in early December, but added the decreasing rates are "a very positive indicator".
