DUBLIN (Reuters) – Around 4,000 additional advanced tests for COVID-19 in the last two or three days have not been formally tested in Ireland, making the situation worse than daily figures are higher than we recommend, a chief health official said Thursday.
Ireland reported more than 1,500 cases for the third day in a row on Thursday, a day after the government announced it would close all unnecessary sales for at least four weeks and extend school holidays to prevent rapid increase.
Ireland has gone from being at its lowest disease rate in the European Union just two weeks ago to experiencing the fastest rate of decline after shops and large parts of the hospitality sector reopened for the most part of December.
“The bottom line here is that we need to keep the transmission down, there is no alternative. If we do not stop distribution we are leaving a situation far too difficult to accept, ”Philip Nolan, head of the Irish modeling group COVID-19, told a news conference.
Nolan expected that the total number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 is likely to double to between 700 and 1,000 people by early January, possibly exceeding the first wave peak. That could reach 1,500 to 2,000 “intolerant” patients if the virus is not suppressed, he said.
To relieve severe pressure on the test system, asymptomatic close binders of confirmed cases will not be advised to have a test and will be asked to limit it instead for 14 days.
“Many people in vulnerable groups did not just hope, they may have prayed for vaccines to come,” said Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan after Ireland began its immunization program. -this week.
“As a society we have a responsibility to allow them to progress to a point where they no longer benefit from being vaccinated and protected. ”
Reciting with Padraic Halpin; Edited by Andrew Heavens and Nick Macfie