Covid-19: 581 patients with virus now in hospital as 73 additional admissions recorded 

At present, between 50 and 70 additional coronavirus-related hospitalisations are being reported each day. File Picture

581 patients with Covid-19 are in Irish hospitals this morning, and 73 additional hospitalisations have been recorded in the last 24 hours. 

Echoing comments made by Chief Medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan yesterday evening, HSE boss Paul Reid has admitted that the country's health system is struggling to cope with the pressure of increasing admissions. 

50 of those in hopsital with the virus are in intensive care units.

At present, between 50 and 70 additional coronavirus-related hospitalisations are being reported each day. 

Speaking yesterday, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan warned that 9,000 additional cases of Covid-19 will be reported when the country’s testing system catches up with a recent case backlog.

We now have 581 #COVID19 patients in hospital. There are 50 people in ICU. We have likely not seen the worst impacts yet. But everything we do today to stop this virus spreading makes a huge difference. Please let's all play our part to protect our health service.@HSELive

— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) January 2, 2021

Speaking at yesterday's public health briefing, the CMO said the current rate of increasing hospital admissions was "very concerning."

"Unfortunately, we expect this to get worse before it gets better," Dr Holohan said.

1,754 new cases were reported yesterday evening - the highest one-day total reported in the pandemic so far.

11 further coronavirus-related deaths were also notified to the Department of Health.

Nine further cases of Covid-19 variant

Meanwhile, nine more cases of the new Covid-19 variant which originated in the UK have been detected here in Ireland.

Director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory in University College Dublin (UCD), Cillian De Gascun confirmed the cases were identified in SARSCoV2 samples taken between December 23 and December 29.

So far, 16 cases of the variant have been identified in Ireland.

Further testing this week of #SARSCoV2 samples dating from #December 23rd to 29th has detected 9 additional #UKvariant cases in #Ireland. This brings the total number of cases identified @nvrlucdireland to 16 (of 169 tested to date) 1/2 https://t.co/gBEy0VjXO7

— Cillian De Gascun (@CillianDeGascun) January 1, 2021

While the sample set is relatively small, Dr De Gascun, said that it suggests the new variant is unlikely to be responsible for the recent rise in overall Covid-19 case numbers reported around the country in recent days.