Ireland 'in a much better position now' in relation to Covid-19 testing capacity

The chair of the government’s Covid-19 expert advisory group, Dr Cillian De Gascun, who is also director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, has said that this has been a good week in relation to testing capacity.

“We are in a much better position now than we were at this time last week,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.

The key thing is to test as much as needed rather than achieving a specific target, he added.

Dr De Gascun said that Ireland is now very close to that position. In recent weeks the issue had been more people were coming through the testing process than laboratories could test. Now GP referrals are being matched and are feeding into laboratory capacity.

There were some imbalances, but these are now being matched from start to finish, he added.

This will allow us to expand out the case definition that we had to refine some weeks back. We want to expand the case definition to make it as sensitive as possible if restrictions are lifted.

Dr De Gascun said that testing and contact tracing are the key elements to lifting restrictions. However, the number of deaths on Tuesday was a stark reminder that “we are not yet where we want to be,” he said.

“I am very confident, with a small caveat, that we have enough diversity and robustness in the system that by the time May 5 comes that testing and the contact tracing element won’t prevent us from lifting restrictions.”

Dr De Gascun said he would be hopeful that Ireland will not need the assistance of other European countries with regard to testing now that sufficient reagent has been sourced.

He said he did not want a ceiling figure for the number of tests to be carried out, instead he wanted as much testing as was required.

The current restrictions started on Friday, March 27. They mandate that everyone should stay at home, only leaving to:
• Shop for essential food and household goods;
• Attend medical appointments, collect medicine or other health products;
• Care for children, older people or other vulnerable people - this excludes social family visits;
• Exercise outdoors - within 2kms of your home and only with members of your own household, keeping 2 metres distance between you and other people
• Travel to work if you provide an essential service - be sure to practice physical distancing

Yesterday, Ireland

Read More:

41 people diagnosed with coronavirus in died, bringing the state’s total to 406.

With an additional 548 new confirmed cases reported by Irish laboratories and 284 confirmed cases reported by a laboratory in Germany, there are now a total of 11,479 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.