Households should do two Covid tests per week, health expert says 

Professor Christine Loscher said antigen testing should become part of life as a tool in the fight against Covid-19. Picture: Brian Lawless

An immunology expert has called for rapid Covid test kits to be made freely available and for testing to be carried out twice weekly in households.

Professor Christine Loscher said antigen testing should become part of life as a tool in the fight against Covid-19.

She also called for a speeding up of the booster campaign and for the public to “recheck” their behaviour.

The appeal comes after a further 3,726 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed last night — the highest Ireland has seen since the deadliest wave of the virus last January.

As of 8am yesterday, 493 Covid-19 patients were hospitalised, of which 90 were in intensive care.

The surge in cases means the government cannot rule out the return of Covid-19 restrictions in the weeks ahead.

Ms Loscher said other countries in Europe are also experiencing a growth in Covid cases because of behaviour changes towards indoor activities due to the winter weather. 

She said booster vaccines will be key to tackling the wave. 

“We’ve been talking about them since July. Look at the numbers in hospital," she added.

People needed to be reminded that the vaccine was about preventing illness and not about stopping people from catching the virus.

Prof Loscher said Ireland has been “backwards” in its attitude to antigen testing which needed to be freely available.

She described it as another tool that should be used, especially when it came to asymptomatic people.

“It is time to stop and reflect. We still need to do all the things we were doing before” she told Newstalk radio.

Meanwhile, Dr Nuala O’Connor of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) said general practices were seeing a huge rise in the number of children wearing school uniforms presenting with Covid-like symptoms when they should have been isolating at home.

The key message was that if anyone had symptoms they should not go to school or work, she said. 

“We all have a role to play. I think there’s fatigue out there, people have to get on with their lives. But we need to dial it back and be a little more cautious," she told RTÉ radio.

People needed to be careful about who they were mixing with and to avoid poorly ventilated indoor spaces, she cautioned. 

If a person had symptoms and stayed home then they would break the chain of infection.

Dr O’Connor said she did not think contact tracing was necessary for school children as the virus was spread in social situations, but the message remained not to go to school if there were symptoms.

HSE chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry acknowledged that the surge in cases was causing “some strain” on health services, especially as there were also cases of influenza being recorded.

One out of every three ICU beds is currently occupied by a Covid patient. 

The booster campaign for healthcare workers will commence this weekend and will last six weeks, he explained, as some staff would not have received their second dose less than six months ago and they would have to wait to get a booster shot.

Multiple channels will be used to rollout out the booster campaign including 35 vaccination centres, hospitals and pharmacies, he said.