From testing rules to clusters — how virus fight is panning out

■ What is happening with testing?

■ More than 30,000 laboratory tests on swabs have been carried out. Roughly 15pc of these have returned a positive result. The tests are done in 14 centres across the country but the hit rate at the labs is lower than was hoped for. The aim is to get to a rate where 15,000 tests are done every day. At the moment, the figure is about 1,500 daily.

A shortage of testing kits in the early part of last week hampered efforts but labs have also been under pressure owing to supply issues. A chemical used to show the presence of the virus when testing a sample has been in short supply, too, due to huge global demand. However, Ireland is a significant player in the pharmaceutical industry, and major firms here hope to play a role in addressing supply issues.

■ How do I know if I should get a test?

■ The criteria for this have changed, leading to confusion, and some people have to contact a GP more than once to secure a test. Now you can phone your GP to be assessed for a test if you are in a priority group and have a fever accompanied by a cough or shortness of breath.

Priority groups are people who have close contact with a confirmed case (living with them or 15 minutes’ face-to-face contact within two metres of them); healthcare workers with regular patient contact; people at risk of severe infection; nursing home staff and residents; pregnant women or people who live in settings where managing symptoms is challenging, such as homeless people, those in direct provision or members of Roma and Travelling communities.

Anyone in a priority group who has been in contact with someone they think or know has coronavirus can get tested if they have any of the following symptoms: cough, congestion, runny nose, sore throat, body aches, tiredness.

■ Are we flattening the curve?

■ There are now 4,604 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland and 137 deaths related to the virus. In the earlier stages of the outbreak, it was envisaged the number of cases would increase daily by 33pc. Yesterday they rose by 7.2pc (+331) — a much lower rate. Eexperts still fear the worst is yet to come and that our ICUs and acute hospitals will be overrun. They say it is too early to suggest the rate of increase has tempered sufficiently.

■ We have all been told to stay at home — so why is the virus spreading?

■ Six in every 10 recent Covid-19 cases are through community transmission — a term used to describe uncontrollable spread of the virus. This happens when a patient becomes ill, tests positive for coronavirus but contact tracing is unsuccessful and cannot link the person back to another known case. This is what the public health experts really want to clamp down on because if they do not know where cases are coming from it is harder to stop the virus spreading.

■ How are people getting the virus?

■ It’s all down to the droplets we have been hearing about. When a person coughs or sneezes, the droplets go everywhere if they do not cover their mouth or nose properly. The droplets can linger on hard surfaces we come in contact with every day, such as door handles, for up to three days. So if another person today comes in contact with a surface that was contaminated yesterday there is a risk of infection. You can get infected by touching a contaminated surface and then touching your face.

■ W`hat is a cluster?

■ A cluster is where there is a great risk of infection because three or more people have already been infected. A cluster can be made up of people who live together or share a nursing home or workplace. But it can also include any setting where people congregate. For example, before all the pubs were shut, two bars were identified as clusters. This means at least six people (three in each pub) got the virus while socialising or working there. Some clusters are linked to travel, such as a group holiday, but most are linked to where people live. This shows that if you get infected, if you are going to pass the virus to anyone it is most likely to be who you live with.

■ What are the risks for people who test positive?

■ Globally, there have been some one million coronavirus cases and more than 50,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). This puts the death rate at 5pc. It has hit elderly people hardest.

Here, almost 90pc of deaths have been among people aged 65 or older. This group also accounts for the highest number of cases. More than 700 people in this age group have tested positive. It also accounts for more than a third of admissions to ICU. However, half of the patients admitted to ICU have been aged between 45 and 64.

■ So young people are not really getting it?

■ That’s not true; but young people are most likely to make a recovery. More than 600 people aged between 25 and 34 have tested positive in Ireland. This accounts for one in six cases and does not differ hugely from the infection rates among people aged 35-44 or 45-54. More people in the 25-34 category tested positive than people in their parents’ age group (55-64). Two deaths in Ireland were people aged 34 or younger. The cases among children and teenagers are low in comparison.

■ How is Ireland coping compared with other countries?

■ More than 200 countries have reported confirmed cases of Covid-19. Ireland is much closer to the top of this list than the bottom and among much bigger countries with larger populations, as well as some comparable states like Denmark, the Czech Republic and Norway.

America, edging towards 250,000 Covid-19 cases, now has almost three times more than China (83,000). Italy and Spain are well past 100,000 cases, while Germany is comparable to China with almost 80,000.

At the start of March, there were about 2,000 new cases being reported globally every day. On each day in April, there have been more than 70,000 new cases, according to the WHO.