HSE: Children displaying low-grade symptoms in school will not be tested for Covid-19

Paul Reid confirmed that testing in meat plants is being paid for by the State, not private operators. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Testing 100,000 people per week does not make economic sense, while children who display low-grade symptoms in schools will not automatically receive a Covid-19 test, the head of the HSE has said.

Speaking to the Oireachtas special committee on Covid-19 Paul Reid, chief executive of the HSE, said that the goal both at the height of the Covid pandemic and at the current time was to achieve capacity of 100,000 tests per week, rather than to actually perform that number.

“Serial testing provides people with a lot of reassurance, but it’s a very significant cost,” Mr Reid said.

He pointed to an example of a recent round of serial testing - repeat testing designed to discover the virus in places where it is not obviously present - which saw a positivity rate of just 0.13%.

“We have to scale up and down and follow the transmission of the virus. We have to target our testing depending on where the virus is,” he said.

Mr Reid said that 28 testing centres are now operational across the country, against the top figure of 48 which were running at the height of the crisis in late April.

The committee heard that the median time for testing turnaround, from referral to completed contact tracing, is now 2.2 days, down from 3.8 days two weeks ago. The average time, meanwhile, is 2.4 days.

Turnaround time in hospital settings is less than a day.

With regard to the potential for outbreaks in schools and how they will be managed, Mr Reid said that an algorithm had been designed in order to handle sick children on a sliding scale.

Dr Colm Henry, chief clinical officer with the HSE, said that the problem would come with differentiating between common childhood illnesses and Covid-19. He said that common symptoms, such as a sniffle, would not merit a test.

The committee heard that serial testing of 50,000 meat processing plant employees has now commenced, with a focus on larger plants.

Some 8,000 people in Direct Provision are now also subject to such testing, together with 30,000 staff and residents in nursing homes.

Mr Reid, responding to questioning regarding the alleged substandard nature of childcare for frontline healthcare workers, said: “We’re showing as much flexibility as we can”. He said that was shown by the HSE’s willingness to reassign staff to other functions in order to help in that regard.

Dr Henry said that CervicalCheck screening has been operational since the beginning of July. He said that breast check screening has been hampered by the need for mobile screening units to be repurposed for Covid.

Meanwhile, head of testing, Niamh O’Beirne, said that as many as 85% of proactive close contacts are now showing up for the day-zero test they were being offered. That figure drops to 50% for the day-seven test, she said.

Mr Reid said that the incoming colour-coded geographical approach to dealing with the virus will see regions in crisis handled in three ways.

• They are: 
• the establishment of pop-up testing facilities; 
• the mobilisation of National Ambulance Service mobile testing; 
• and the NAS testing directly within specific organisations.

Mr Reid, meanwhile, confirmed that testing in meat plants is being paid for by the State, not private operators.

Dr Henry clarified that the lower death and hospitalisation rates currently being seen are a result of changed behaviours in older people and more testing for younger cohorts.

The ongoing controversy surrounding European Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan was only indirectly referenced, with Dr Henry stating that the advice is “clear” that people entering the country from non-Green List countries must isolate for two weeks, regardless of their receipt of a negative test in the interim.