Covid-19: Paul Reid says positivity rate down over past eight days 

Mr Reid praised the progress on Covid-19. Picture: Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland

The head of the HSE has said the positivity rate in Covid-19 testing has come down in the last eight days and that close contacts have declined to an average of three. 

In a post on Twitter, Paul Reid, the Chief Executive of the HSE praised the progress. 

"Most close contacts are household. Still very early but good. We're all be part of the solution. Let's keep this going," Mr Reid wrote on Twitter. 

Yesterday the Department of Health confirmed 859 new cases of Covid-19 and four further deaths. 

This is the second day that the reported daily Covid-19 case numbers have fallen below 1,000. 

The HSE chief also admitted the collapse of the contract tracing system last weekend should not have happened.

Mr Reid said a surge in demand led to thousands of people who tested positive for Covid-19 being asked to do their own contact tracing.

He said follow-up calls are being made to those affected this weekend to assess the outcome of their calls.

Mr Reid said he regrets what happened and that the volume of contract tracing taking place has increased dramatically in recent days. 

"Last week shouldn't have happened to the extent that it happened, but it did and it was one of those overwhelming weekends when 3,500 calls had to be made.

"We went from 8,000 calls per week to 28,000 calls per week in a very short period and that certainly culminated last weekend in not having the required resources in place.

"There has been a challenge for us on the scale of recruitment levels we are at, we have now 270 people recruited, and in essence, what happened last weekend were absolutely uncontrolled levels in the community.

"I regret what happened last weekend and how we fixed it," said Mr Reid.