Covid-19: Nphet warns of an additional 9,000 cases when reporting backlog cleared 

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said on Friday: 'With the disease now not in control, we focus our public health actions on mitigation.' Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

Nphet has warned that more than 9,000 additional cases of Covid-19 will be reported when the system catches up on this week’s cases, as the backlog between Covid-19 tests completed and reported continues to grow.

This comes as authorities reported a further 11 Covid-19-related deaths on Friday, and 1,754 new cases. This now brings the total number of deaths to 2,248, and confirmed or reported cases to 93,532.

Warnings given by Nphet’s Professor Philip Nolan on New Year’s Eve were repeated on Friday when he said: “An excess of 9,000 additional new cases will be reported over the coming days. The reporting delay does not affect case management or contract tracing or our overall modelling of the pandemic.” Worryingly, the number of patients in ICU has risen to 47 and the overall number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 has also risen slightly to 504.

1754 new COVID-19 cases tonight but, according to Professor Philip Nolan: @rtenews pic.twitter.com/ANi6brObw7

— Órla O'Donnell (@Orlaodo) January 1, 2021

The 14-day incidence rate is now at 321.3 cases per 100,000 population. The Department of Health released data showing the positivity rate spiking from 5% on December 18 to 20.7% by New Year’s Eve.

In the last 24 hours 26,866 tests were completed nationally. The Government’s data hub shows 5,573 positive swabs from this, giving a positivity rate of 20.74%.

And a source familiar with the contact tracing situation said: 

There were more than 5,000 people awaiting calls re positive test results at 10pm on Thursday.” 

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said on Friday: “With the disease now not in control, we focus our public health actions on mitigation.

“Mitigation means we focus testing on the symptomatic, ask those with symptoms waiting for test or result, or [who] test positive to self-isolate for 10 days, trace close contacts, advise close contacts to restrict movements for 14 days and all others to stay at home to end level 5.” 

We have very high levels of community transmission of #COVID19

We find, test and trace to isolate cases/restrict contacts as CONTAINMENT or ‘control’ actions.

With the disease now not in control, we focus our public health actions on MITIGATION . https://t.co/o0YrfPTPxM

— Dr Tony Holohan (@DrTonyHolohan) January 1, 2021

He said between 50 and 70 people are now being admitted daily to hospitals, and he expects this to get worse before it improves.

The HSE has told GPs that asymptomatic close contacts of a person with confirmed Covid-19 should not be sent for testing.

HSE head Paul Reid told RTÉ on Friday: “What we have to do now is prioritise our capacity. Everybody remembers the 100,000 per week capacity that we wanted to build, we now have 175,000 per week capacity.

“So we have to prioritise that now for the most symptomatic people. And that’s in essence what we have had to do.” 

So far 2,401,599 tests have been completed since March to find 107,293 positive confirmed cases.

The most seriously-affected county in Munster remains Limerick, with a 14-day rate of infection standing at 506.4, well above the national rate. This is followed by Kerry at 331.1 and Cork at 289.9.

Meanwhile, in the Mid-West region of Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary, the public health department has noticed confusion among the public as to how the testing process works.

The storm has arrived - Nphet said that at least 9,000 positive cases have yet to be formally reported. This is worse than the 1st and 2nd waves combined.

An unimaginable scenario for our already exhausted healthcare staff. We can do nothing to help them expect STAY AT HOME. 🇮🇪

— Elaine Byrne (@ElaineByrne) January 1, 2021

The team took to social media to remind people the only way to change or cancel a swabbing appointment is to use a link included in the notifying text message.

A spokesman wrote: “You should receive a text message with your result within three days of your test. If you do not receive a result, you can request a call back from the HSE website at http://hse.ie/covidresults.”