HSE to start retrospective contact tracing next week

Paul Reid at Dr Steevens’ Hospital for the weekly HSE operational update on the response to Covid-19. Picture: Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland

The HSE is to begin a process of retrospective contact tracing in the coming days.

It is hoped this will help public health to identify the source of community infections, which currently account for about one-fifth of all cases of Covid-19.

Starting Wednesday, the HSE is to begin retrospective tracing over a period of seven days, a health briefing was told on Thursday afternoon.

Dr Greg Martin, HSE clinical lead for contact tracing, said this enhanced system, which was trialled in December, will allow public health to better define the source of these infections.

Dr Martin said seven days was chosen to maximise the benefit from the call.

He said:

If you go back for too long you develop an endless list of places a person has been. 

He also said contact tracers recorded a 25% increase in cases contracting the virus in social settings last week compared to the week before. 

He speculated this could be due to increased socialisation around St Patrick’s Day.

Paul Reid, HSE chief, defended the move to start more detailed contact tracing now, claiming it would not have been possible to do this while case numbers were at the much higher rate that was evident a few weeks ago.

Contact tracing is just one aspect of the new steps taken to minimise the spread of the virus, with five new walk-in Covid-19 test centres in place in virus hotspots since today.

Mr Reid said over 400 people have used these already. They are aimed at asymptomatic people. One centre had 62 attendees in just the first hour.

Vaccines

Health officials also gave an update on vaccines.

Mr Reid said about 17,500 people who missed out on their AstaZeneca vaccine last week when that rollout was paused have now been vaccinated.  

The briefing also heard 10% of the people who should have gotten AstraZeneca this week did not show up.

Next week the HSE plans to deliver between 95,000 and 100,000 vaccine doses. This will include between 75,000 and 80,000 to the over-70s across 540 GP practices.

People in long-term care including disability centres will receive 5,000 doses and between 15,000 and 20,000 doses will go to individuals in the Group 4 category.

The vaccination programme is showing results for the groups already vaccinated, with just 46 healthcare workers acquiring the virus while at work in the latest data. This compares to over 1,000 in a single week in January.

However, Covid-patient numbers remain high with just three hospitals without any such patients.

The 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 of population in Ireland is now at 159 which is a slight rise from 150 earlier in the week. 

Data shows that in 23 of the 31 European countries this 14-day rate is rising.