Stopping infection ‘the only tool we have’

MEDICAL experts have warned people to stay home to prevent similar coronavirus death tolls to those in Italy.

Dr Catherine Motherway, president of the Intensive Care Society of Ireland, quoted below, told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘Everyone needs to understand that its up to the public to fix this.’

Consultant in infectious disease at Beaumont Hospital, Dr Eoghan De Barra, said: ‘We are one of the leaders, in terms of how quickly we have ramped up testing, but it’s hard to keep ahead of this infection.’ He agreed that it’s likely we have tens of thousands of people in the country carrying the virus, and added: ‘There’s an awful lot of people that will have very little symptoms. If we look at the Chinese data, 80% of people who presented for healthcare only had mild symptoms, notwithstanding, another huge group of people who didn’t present and didn’t get tested. We won’t know how large that cohort of people is until we have prevalence studies. Hence the more stringent measures in getting everyone to isolate, because the only tool we have is to break the chain of infection.’

He is concerned about the ability of our hospitals to cope with a crisis if we reach levels seen in Italy. In terms of when Ireland will reach our peak, Dr De Barra said: ‘I think it’s very difficult to decipher. In an ideal setting, we’d be able to test rapidly in the community. The figures we have are from five or even more days ago in terms of community testing, which is why death rates and ICU rates are our marker for it.’