'We are seeing numbers that I never anticipated': Nphet warns ICU patients could reach 400
Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Tony Holohan, and Chair of the Nphet Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group Professor Philip Nolan at the Department of Health press briefing in Dublin tonight. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie
Unless people strictly follow the social distancing guidelines, we could soon have 400 people in intensive care beds, the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has warned.
The Department of Health confirmed six new deaths related to Covid-19 and 6,110 new cases. This now brings fatalities to 2,265 and cases to 107,997.
The number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 is now at 776, including 70 in ICU.
The county with the highest 14-day incidence rate is Monaghan at 1,119.1, the rate in Limerick has also risen again to 979 and the incidence rate in Cork is 453.
Monaghan has the highest reported 14-Day incidence rate per 100,000 with 1,119.1 while Wicklow reported the lowest at 273.1.
Border counties Louth and Donegal reported high 14-day incident rates respectively as well at 1,031.2 and 832.3.
Every county declared new cases, and the national 14-day incidence rate of cases per 100,000 at 582.8 continues to accelerate rapidly.
Cork recorded 291 and Limerick reported 234 cases. 137 cases were confirmed in Louth while the remaining 1,470 cases are found in all other counties in the country.
Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Tony Holohan said this evening: “We haven’t been as concerned at any point in the pandemic, people have to stay at home. We couldn’t express the urgency of that now in clearer terms, this is a really really serious situation.
Chair of the Nphet Epidemiological Modelling Group Professor Philip Nolan warned of up to 400 people in intensive care which would exceed the current HSE capacity of 287.
He said: “We are seeing numbers that I never anticipated I might to report. …. We confirmed a little over 3,000 cases per day on average. That level of disease is already having an enormous impact on our hospitals.
A further breakdown of the case data released by the Department of Health shows:
- 2,911 cases are men and 3,195 cases are women
- 63% of cases are under 45 years of age
- The median age of cases is 36 years old
92 patients were admitted to hospital in Ireland in the last 24 hours and 776 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been hospitalised.
70 of those people are currently receiving treatment for Covid-19 in intensive care. 11 people were admitted to intensive care units (ICU) in the last 24 hours.
17 people were discharged from hospital, three of them from intensive care.
Delays at nursing homes which should have started vaccinating today will not impact the overall roll-out, the HSE National Director, Acute Operations, Dr Liam Woods said.
The Examiner understands many nursing homes are working with Excel to file consent data rather than the new HSE IT system which is not yet fully online.
Health minister Stephen Donnelly told RTÉ today the vaccination target has increased thanks to an early delivery from Pfizer.
In the first few days of vaccination 4,000 people got their first shot he said, saying 25 nursing homes and 20 hospitals will start this week.
A HSE spokeswoman said: “We have received 40,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine. By the end of the coming week we plan to have distributed about 35,000 vaccinations out of 40,000 received.”
Meanwhile the public health doctors who investigate and track this virus have stepped back from threatened strike action.
The country’s 91 Specialists of Public Health Medicine (SPHMs) had planned three days of action this month as part of their 17-year battle for consultant status and contracts.
The IMO's Public Health Committee served notice of industrial action on the HSE and the Department of Health at the end of November.
It is understood the decision to postpone the strike did not follow any approach by the HSE or Department of Health.
The SPHMs appear to have decided to take the initiative in light of recent developments.
Currently these doctors despite leading Ireland’s response to Covid-19 do not have consultant status or salary although this was part of a pay and productivity agreement in 201 Increased productivity was fast-tracked due to the crisis, however they did not get the extra pay or contracts.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has repeatedly stressed he "fully supports the creation of consultant level roles in Public Health Medicine" and has said the creation of these roles is "a priority" for him.
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