School outbreaks cause spike in demand for Covid tests in Kerry

A trip to Kerry's single Covid test centre can involve a three-hour round trip for people living on the county's peninsulas.

There are calls for extra Covid-19 test centres for Co Kerry as demand soars during a spike in cases, which includes the closing of a school.

Kerry has just one public test centre, based in Tralee — a three-hour round trip for people living on Kerry's peninsulas.

Queues lasting one hour and 15 minutes have formed at the HSE test centre in recent days. 

The centre is a GP referral facility based at Ballymullen army barracks.

A privately-run self-referral drive-thru centre, also based in Tralee at the Bons Secours Hospital, is experiencing huge demand also.

The spike in demand is believed to be driven by outbreaks in schools this week and especially by the families of almost 400 children and staff of Scoil Mhuire, Killorglin, as well as their close contacts.

They have all been requested to undergo a Covid-19 test after the outbreak which led to the closure of the national school.

Other schools in the mid-Kerry and Tralee area have also been affected by outbreaks this week.

At the Bons Secours hospital, where tests cost €80, between 250 to 300 people are booking each day.

The Bons tests are for people who do not have symptoms — this group is advised to contact their GP — and is only available for the month of December.

Around 30 cars were queuing at the drive-thru at 8am today.

The centre was established in partnership with Kerry Airport to accommodate people returning from abroad for Christmas, but only 25% of those seeking the test are travellers from abroad, hospital manager T J O’Connor said.

“The majority of people are worried about visiting relatives at Christmas,” he said, adding that the Killorglin school closure has driven demand even higher this week.

Fianna Fáil councillor for the Killorglin area Michael Cahill said that one HSE test centre in Tralee was not sufficient for the needs of everybody in Kerry

"We need to increase and roll out as a matter of priority the number of test centres to all towns in our county, starting with Killorglin," he said.

“Imagine the logistics involved in organising a three-hour-plus round trip for the test, with or without your own transport."

The HSE has been asked for comment.