RECORD CASE HIGH

As South African strain arrives and private hospitals deal is struck

THREE cases of the South African variant of Covid-19 have been discovered in Ireland, the chief medical officer has said.

The news came as a record daily total of 8,248 confirmed coronavirus cases were recorded in Ireland, along with 20 further deaths – the most deaths since May.

There are fears that the mutated form of coronavirus could be resistant to vaccines, although public health chiefs here say there i s not enough i nformation to determine that.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said: ‘All of the cases identified are directly associated with recent travel from South Africa. Anyone who has travelled from South Africa recently is advised to self-isolate for 14 days and identify themselves through a GP for testing as soon as possible.

Patients to more than double

We are particularly advising healthcare workers travelling from South Africa, that it is essential that they self-isolate for 14 days before entering/re- entering the workplace. While this variant has not yet been identified in many European countries, we believe the identification here reflects the extent of genome sequencing surveillance in Ireland.’

NPHET’s virology expert Dr Cillian de Gascun said: ‘There is currently not enough information available to determine whether this variant poses a possible risk related to vaccine match and effectiveness. The antigenic characterisation of this new variant is ongoing, and results are expected in the coming weeks.’

Meanwhile, health officials are preparing emergency plans across hospitals as they expect the number of Covid patients to more than double over the coming weeks. In an effort to ease the strain, a deal has been struck with 16 private hospitals to provide additional capacity to the HSE, the Health Minister said. The agreement was reached to help with the surge in Covid-19 cases if they arise within the next 12 months. The private hospitals have agreed to supply up to 30% of their capacity, depending on the incidence of the disease, and some have indicated that more can be offered. Stephen Donnelly said: ‘I am delighted that this agreement has been reached and note that the HSE was still in ongoing constructive engagement with the one remaining private hospital, which is already providing service to the public system.’

This comes as the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) says that new ‘critical emergency’ protocols are needed in the HSE to deal with chronic shortages of nurses due to Covid absences.

Anne O’Connor, HSE chief operations officer, said they are preparing f or 2,500 coronavirus patients in hospital, with up to 400 people in ICU over the coming weeks. AS of yesterday there were 1,151 people in hospital with coronavirus and 101 patients in ICU.

Ireland’s coronavirus reproduction number is now between 2.4 and 3, the highest it has been.

‘We hope we don’t get there and the action people take will impact on that,’ Dr O’Connor told RTÉ.

‘Part of the challenge is time lag. When we hear the big numbers announced every day, in terms of the number who test positive, it takes a number of days or even a week for that to translate into hospital figures and another week again for ICU figures.’

The senior HSE official said that all hospital sites have surge capacity and will scale up to respond to higher numbers.

Cork University Hospital is preparing to trigger its emergency tiered escalation plan over the rising number of cases.

The decision to suspend nonCovid treatments is to maximise capacity in hospitals to care for the sickest patients who have

Covid-19, the HSE said. Michelle Kingston, an emergency department nurse at CUH, said they are at crisis point. ‘A lot of our staff are out sick with Covid or out because of contacts. That’s the challenge for us,’ she said.

INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: ‘It is time for the HSE to ramp-up safety plans and introduce critical emergency protocols.’ The INMO is calling for a huge reduction in hospital footfall, additional PPE, a constant presence of senior management across the health service and improved communication with staff.