Irish health officials believe South African variant of COVID-19 is contained

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Health officials in Ireland, where a more infectious variant of the coronavirus first discovered in England has increased, said on Saturday they believed three cases of another new variant found in South Africa South had been contained.

Ireland is grappling with a COVID-19 outbreak that topped the first wave last year. He confirmed the first cases of the most contagious variant found in South Africa on Friday in people who traveled to Ireland from South Africa over the Christmas holidays.

Ireland this week reported an increasing presence of the variant found for the first time in England. It was detected in 25% of positive cases who underwent further testing in the week before Jan. 3, up from just 9% two weeks earlier.

“The UK variant is of concern to us no longer just because of the amount of virus that is on the island, and we know it spreads in the community,” said Cillian De Gascun, head of the Irish national virus laboratory, on the national television channel RTE.

“The good thing about the South African variant is that we know exactly where these cases are coming from, they have been contained, checked and contacts have been traced, and to my knowledge there has been no subsequent transmission.

The government on Wednesday announced its toughest lockdown measures since the start of last year, warning that a ‘tsunami’ of infections fueled by the UK variant and the easing of brakes before Christmas could overwhelm the healthcare system .

The number of patients in Irish hospitals with COVID-19 rose 12% in 24 hours on Saturday to 1,285, after surpassing the peak of 881 set in the first wave of infections in recent days.

Fourteen other patients were admitted to intensive care units (ICU). That brings the total number of people in intensive care to 119 and leaves just 27 of the 284 intensive care beds in public hospitals across the country empty.

These hospitals can safely increase intensive care capacity to 375, the head of the Irish health service (HSE) said this week. The HSE has also reached an agreement to support intensive care beds in private hospitals for COVID-19 admissions.