THE HSE HAS expressed concern at the increase in the number of close contacts of confirmed Covid-19 cases in recent weeks.
Speaking at an briefing to provide an update on the test and trace system, HSE CEO Paul Reid said this increase was “largely what was behind a lot of the recommendations from NPHET this week”.
He said contact tracing staff are seeing some positive Covid-19 cases with “well over 40 or even up to 50 contacts per person” to trace. The median number of close contacts of a confirmed case is now 6.
The 14-day incidence of positive cases is now 25.4 per 100,000. He said there are clusters relating to social and family gatherings as well as workplaces.
Over the last week, 55,000 tests have been completed, with 41,000 of those samples being taken through community or serial testing systems. The positivity rate for tests is now 2%.
Reid said the increasing number of close contacts of confirmed cases “is a concern” and he said he wanted to appeal to the public to abide by the new measures.
Although he acknowledged there had been a delay with contacting the close contacts of some cases, Reid rejected suggestions that the system was not prepared for the expansion of testing in the last week.
He said the National Ambulance Service has been mobilised to operate pop-up testing centres and resources have been scaled back up for contact tracing.
Speaking at the briefing this morning, HSE Chief Operations Officer Anne O’Connor clarified that there was an error in the data recorded for hospital and ICU numbers last night as well as deaths in critical care, which resulted in the publication of higher figures than were actually in hospital.
She said the error has been corrected and that the data is taken from a particular database so it does not impact on any other figures provided.
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