Public health officials warn Covid trends 'a cause for considerable concern'

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan; Professor Philip Nolan, chair of Nphet's Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group; and Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn at Wednesday afternoon's Covid-19 update press conference at the Department of Health. Picture: Colin Keegan/ Collins Dublin

Almost one in 10 recent Covid-19 cases in the State are travel-related, public health officials have said.

It comes as they warn the rate of infection is increasing by 2% to 4% daily. Some 783 cases of Covid-19 were reported on Wednesday.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said the epidemiological situation is beginning to deteriorate across the world as a result of the Delta variant, first identified in India.

There was a 10% increase in cases globally last week compared to the previous week, Dr Glynn said.

In the European region, there was a 20% increase in the number of cases week on week, largely driven by surges in the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Greece.

626 travel-related cases

Speaking at a briefing with reporters on Wednesday, Dr Glynn said there have been 626 travel-related cases over the past fortnight, representing 8.4% of the total number of cases.

Spain accounted for more than half of travel-related cases at 385, followed by Britain at 161 and Portugal at 131.

From Monday, the EU digital Covid certificate, which is being rolled out to fully vaccinated individuals, will facilitate the resumption of non-essential international travel.

Asked if this move was a mistake, given the unstable situation in many European countries, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said it was “proportionate”.

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“Our message would be, from a public health point of view, is we still have a portion of the population to be vaccinated, they’re not far away from vaccination,” Dr Holohan said.

“We’re still advising, on an individual basis, they’re better to put off their travel arrangements, whatever plans they may have until such a point that they are vaccinated.” 

Indoor dining

On the question of indoor dining, Dr Holohan said it is safer for parents not to bring children into indoor dining settings and this is the “responsible public health advice”.

Dr Holohan said for those who wished to go out with their children, “dining outdoors is still possible”.

The Government is planning to allow pubs and restaurants to serve indoors those who can demonstrate proof of being fully vaccinated from next week.

Children will be allowed to dine indoors if they are in the company of their fully vaccinated parents.

However, Dr Holohan said that caution still needs to be exercised given the spread of the Delta variant.

“You don’t have to go indoors,” he said. “We know Delta transmission among children can happen.”

'Cause for considerable concern'

Prof Philip Nolan, chairman of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said the current Covid environment was a “cause for considerable concern”.

The 14-day incidence rate is 157 cases per 100,000 population, while the five day moving average is 617 cases.

The State is “in the beginnings” of seeing an increase in the number of people in hospital, Prof Nolan added.

The number of Covid patients in hospital has increased from 45 over the seven days preceding this day two weeks ago, to about 50 on average to Wednesday last week, and to 60 on average this week.

“At the same time, the number of admissions has increased from a very stable six per day to eight or nine per day and trending upwards,” Prof Nolan said.

Where we typically had two admissions every five days to intensive care, we are now looking at an average of an admission per day. Where this is going into the future isn’t entirely clear.” 

Prof Nolan said the Republic was “now in the early stages of exponential growth with Delta”, with “a very marked increase” in cases among 18- to 24-year-olds.

The growth rate is currently estimated to be 3.5%, and case numbers are "tracking ahead" of the optimistic modelling scenario.

However, Prof Nolan said he did not expect that trend to be sustained.

In addition to confirming 783 new cases of the virus, Nphet said that, as of 8am, 73 Covid-19 patients were in hospital, of which 20 were in ICU. There were 13 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

There were 12 deaths linked to the virus reported in June, and one so far in July, bringing the total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic to 5,018.