THE FIRST GLIMMER OF HOPE
Holohan warns hospitals and ICU situation is worsening but case and positivity rates offer...
A ‘GLIMMER of hope’ is on the horizon in our Covid- 19 fight, health chiefs said yesterday, as surging case numbers began to stabilise.
Although t he si t uation in hospitals continues to worsen day by day, there are signs that we are beginning to turn a corner – with the positivity rate of tests falling in recent days.
There was also good news on the vaccine front yesterday, as it was announced that the first shipment of the Moderna vaccine will reach Irish shores by the end of this week.
Ireland has pre- ordered 875,000 doses of the jab, which is easier to roll out than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It poses fewer logistical challenges as it requires storage at just -20C – rather than around -80C for Pfizer’s shot.
Both Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan and NPHET expert Professor Philip Nolan gave positive appraisals of the country’s pandemic situation
yesterday, while also sounding a note of caution on the uphill struggle ahead for hospitals – with ICU admissions still rising.
Ireland’s rate of Covid-19 has skyrocketed in recent weeks, which has been blamed on the lifting of restrictions over Christmas and the prevalence of the highly transmissible UK variant of the virus.
And while new data shows that Ireland currently has the highest coronavirus infection rate in the world, the tsunami of cases is expected to plateau in the coming days and weeks.
On the Moderna vaccine boost for the country, Professor Karina Butler, chairwoman of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, last night said a batch of the new jabs would be in Ireland by the end of the week.
The European Medicines Agency has also said it expects drug-maker AstraZeneca to apply for approval of its Covid-19 vaccine this week – with a decision on it possible by the end of this month.
Prof. Butler said AstraZeneca is trying to have ‘very significant quantities of vaccine available to us at that time’, which will certainly allow acceleration of the roll-out. It comes as the HSE last night confirmed that it exceeded its first weekly target of 35,000 Covid-19 vaccines.
NPHET’s Prof. Nolan said last night: ‘It does look like we are beginning to turn a corner.’
He said the situation was stabilising and case numbers would begin to decline.
Last night a further 4,929 Covid19 cases were confirmed here, along with eight more deaths of people infected with the virus.
While this is still a large daily total for cases, it was a fall of almost 2,000 on the previous day’s tally of 6,888.
‘We are beginning to see early signs of improvement in the situation but that improvement is from such a high level of disease that our health services remain very much under strain and under threat, and will be so for a number of weeks,’ Prof. Nolan added.
Such has been the rapid spread of the virus here of late, one in every 76 people have been infected with it within the last fortnight.
Dr Holohan told last night’s health briefing: ‘While we are seeing the first glimmer of hope in respect of our daily case figures and positivity rates, the situation in hospitals and ICUs around the country continues to worsen day on day. We know that hospitalisations occur some weeks after a confirmed case is notified, and mortality after that again.
‘That means we are unfortunately set for a period of time where the situation in our hospitals gets worse before it gets better.’
A total of 146 people were last night in intensive care in hospitals around the country.
However, Prof. Nolan warned that this figure could reach up to 400 in the next two weeks.
This would require the assistance of private hospitals’ ICU facilities.
It comes as new figures show that Ireland’s Covid-19 infection rate over the last week has been the highest in the world per capita. In the last week, the country has had 10,100 confirmed cases of coronavirus per million people, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University in the US.
Taoiseach Micheál
Martin yesterday said that the UK strain of the virus was now present in 45% of the most recent samples that underwent additional testing. Two weeks earlier, it was found in 25% of tests, and it was in just 9% of cases a fortnight previous to that – highlighting how quickly the strain has spread. The head of the HSE warned yesterday that the hospital system is ‘beyond strain’. Writing on Twitter, CEO Paul Reid said: ‘I know everyone is finding it all very tough. But the situation in our hospitals is now beyond strain. To avoid getting sick, protect your family and healthcare workers, please, please stay at home.’ The pressure on the creaki ng hospital system became evident on Sunday night when a queue of seven ambulances formed outside Letterkenny University Hospital in Co. Donegal, delaying patients’ admission to its emergency department because the hospital was overwhelmed.
The president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, Professor Alan Irvine, said the acute hospital system is under the greatest pressure ‘in living memory’ and that it is ‘a national emergency’.
He told RTÉ Radio: ‘We’ve seen 1,000 people admitted with Covidrelated illnesses since January 2. So that’s just nine days. The admissions are doubling, both in intensive care, and in general acute beds, every week. We’re on a really dangerous and worrying and concerning trajectory. If we continue to double in a week and double again a week after that, the system really will not be able to cope.’
If the numbers continue to double over the next few weeks as they have been, the result would be ‘catastrophic’, he added. Prof. Irvine said that with fewer than 40
‘Hospitals situation will get worse’ ‘Fewer than 40’ free ICU beds
ICU beds available yesterday, he would expect those to be exhausted in the coming days, at which point surge capacity will be needed.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar warned yesterday that January would be the darkest month the health service has ever faced.
It comes as gardaí prepare to ramp up Covid-19 enforcement measures from today, with fines of €100 to be issued immediately to people who travel beyond the 5km radius limit and who refuse to comply with a direction to turn back.
The escalation comes after thousands of people visited beauty spots and scenic locations all over the country at the weekend for exercise outside their 5km limit.
Hundreds were turned back from the snowy Wicklow mountains over the weekend, and several illegally parked cars were towed away from mountain roads because gardaí said they had blocked access for emergency vehicles.