Huge jump in cases of Covid and flu in week before Christmas

Cork University Hospital, Cork. Cork and Kerry are among the worst affected by new cases of influenza and Covid-19.

Cases of Covid-19 and influenza both jumped massively in the seven days before Christmas, with Cork and Kerry among the worst affected. 

New cases of Covid jumped by almost 700 while new cases of influenza have almost doubled in just one week. 

It comes as hospitals are currently suffering with overcrowding issues as emergency departments struggle to cope with new patients arriving on a daily basis.

Some 838 people are waiting on trolleys across the Irish hospital service as of Wednesday morning — the second highest figure ever recorded.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) warned that "no hospital is unaffected by overcrowding today".

The latest Health Protection Surveillance Centre report on infectious diseases across Ireland has revealed data for week 51 of 2022 — from December 18 to Christmas Eve.

In that seven-day span, there were:

• 3,809 coronavirus cases
• 2,332 new cases of influenza
• 532 new cases of respiratory syncytial virus infection (RSV)

By comparison, in week 50 of 2022 — which ran from December 11 to December 17 — the number of cases of disease were:

• 3,118 coronavirus cases
• 1,174 cases of influenza
• 502 cases of RSV

The south and midwest are among the worst-affected regions, with 437 new cases of coronavirus and 269 new flu reports in HSE South (Cork and Kerry), while HSE Mid West (Clare, Limerick and North Tipperary) saw jumps of 264 and 273 for coronavirus and influenza respectively.

The number of new RSV cases in the week before Christmas was 532 — which is a drop from the rate of two weeks ago which stood at 665.

The INMO has urged the Government to intervene and declare an "out and out crisis"  as a total of 838 patients are awaiting a bed as of 8am on Wednesday.