Pressure on hospitals from Covid-19 surge is expected to peak next week

Pressure on hospitals from the unprecedented surge in the number of Covid-19 patients is expected to peak next week, according to public health officials.

But even after the number of patients infected with the virus in hospitals and intensive care units begins to decline, authorities predict a “large number” of patients still in need of treatment, along with persistent outbreaks in hospitals and hospitals. retirement homes.

It will be ‘fine in February’ before hospitals are able to resume treatment of large numbers of non-Covid patients outside of emergencies, officials said at a national emergency team briefing of public health (Nphet) Thursday evening.

Officials hope the recent reduction in the number of Covid-19 cases will translate into a drop in the number of Covid-19 hospital patients from the current level of nearly 1,800 to 650-800 by the end of January “if that happens. goes well”.

“Going from 1800 to 800 will be a huge achievement for a few weeks,” said Professor Philip Nolan, chair of Nphet’s epidemiological modeling advisory group.

The number of intensive care patients, now at a record 169, is expected to drop to 100-120 by the end of January if current progress is sustained.

The Health Service Executive has effectively reached the limit of its intensive care unit and is using its peak capacity, said chief executive Paul Reid. “Our teams work 24 hours a day. It’s a race to save lives in all of our hospitals.

With up to 10 percent of healthcare workers forced to leave their jobs due to infection or close contact with a Covid-19 case, hospitals are struggling to keep beds open to respond on demand.

More than 5,000 healthcare workers have been infected with Covid-19 since Christmas, new figures show; 25 of these staff required hospitalization and one was admitted to intensive care. There were no deaths, according to figures from the Health Protection Monitoring Center.

28 more deaths of Covid-19 patients were reported Thursday, as well as 3,955 new cases. Almost half of all cases reported during the pandemic occurred in the past fortnight, when one in 67 people tested positive.

The new, more transmissible Covid-19 variant, which was first identified in the UK in December, now accounts for 46% of samples sequenced by Irish laboratories, officials have revealed. Due to concerns about another variant emerging in Brazil, which has not been detected in Ireland, travelers from Brazil must self-isolate after arriving in Ireland and report for a Covid test, Nphet recommended. This is similar to measures recently introduced for travelers from the UK and South Africa, resulting in the emergence of worrying variants in these countries.

Vaccine

With 1.57% of people having received a first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, the state now has the second highest coverage in the EU, according to Our World in Data.

Meanwhile, the head of emergencies at the World Health Organization has warned that the Republic, along with other countries, could be “in serious trouble” if new variants of Covid-19 “change the rules of the game” in terms of prevention of transmission.

Dr Mike Ryan has expressed concern that people are not ‘supporting the things we need to do at any level’ as the pandemic progresses, when new variants could change the rules of prevention infections.

Ireland has done exceptionally well twice during the pandemic, he said on Thursday. “The Irish, Irish science, the government, they all came together and you made it.” Although the number of cases has since increased, he believed Ireland could change things with a concerted effort.

As the worldwide death toll from Covid-19 is expected to exceed 2 million in the coming days, Dr Ryan warned people have become ‘numb’ by the numbers. The world was facing “headwinds” from a “perfect storm” of cold pushing people indoors, social mixtures over the Christmas holidays, and the emergence of virus variants.

Meanwhile, the government plans to start reopening special schools and primary classes for children with additional needs from January 21. It follows an agreement with the school staff unions.

Tánaist Leo Varadkar reaffirmed that it is likely that currently closed businesses will remain closed “until the end of March”.