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HEALTH OFFICIALS ARE closely monitoring Covid rates as positivity in the community increases, with the demand for testing also rising.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, HSE National Lead for Testing and Tracing Niamh O’Beirne said the positivity rate in the community is currently at 10%.
Positivity is higher in some counties, including Kerry (15%), Monaghan (13%), Donegal (13%) and Waterford (15%).
O’Beirne said due to increased testing demand in some of these areas additional supports have been put in place.
She said the downward trend in testing began to reverse six days ago and there are more symptomatic people coming forward for testing. Yesterday around 17,000 tests were done in the community.
Household positivity is at 25% and as people are mixing more, social activities are also among the top outbreak settings, she said.
Today 1,466 new cases of Covid-19 were reported and there are 402 patients with the disease in hospital, with 73 of those patients being treated in ICU.
Covid hospitalisation numbers are at their highest since March and O’Beirne said increasing case numbers may result in increase hospitalisations.
“We’re starting to see the median age of those Covid-positive change – that was age 27 a few weeks ago, it’s now 34,” she said.
“What that is showing us is that more people who are older are turning up positive, so less in the teenage ages and up to the twenties and thirties, and more people over the age of 65 turning up Covid positive. Potentially those people would be sicker.”
She said people in their 30s, 40s, 50s are more likely, if they are not vaccinated, to end up in hospital. Between 40% and 50% of Covid patients in hospital are unvaccinated and 69% of Covid patients in ICU are not vaccinated.
The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) will meet next week to assess the current situation ahead of the planned lifting of most Covid restrictions on 22 October.
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Yes I agree. Whatever they need to defend themselves should be supplied and quickly
Very well written and informative
Insights From Ukraine and Russia on YouTube has intercepted phonecalls from Russian soldiers to family members on what’s really going on there, can’t do link but their families are urging them to come home now.
@Ian O’Donovan: Give us a channel name if you have one Ian, please
@Burt Macklin: Search for “Insights from Ukraine and Russia.”
Will the west and in particular nato keep supplying Kiev with heavy weapons and equipment for a long and grinding war, if they don’t surely putin knows he has the advantage then to push on further
Ukraine will be pressed to cede the Donbas in the short-term by the West. This will be in exchange for the promise of a ‘death by 1000 cuts’ campaign against Russia that may take 10 years + but with the eventual promise of the return to ’91 borders. We are at the beginning of Cold War 2
Tom what is your opinion on the following: Putin and Russia lack a tactical sea port to house it’s navy on the European ‘front’. By annexing Crimea and taking control of Donbas over to Odessa, he will have gained control of most of the black sea and the safe port of the sea of azov with his allie, Turkey to the south.This would give them access to the Aegean sea/ Greece and then the med. That is what he is after. The rest of Ukraine is a red herring. If it is true that Russia is struggling, now is the time to defend Odessa across to Kherson and try and regain Crimea by flooding that area with arms, even if that means forsaking the north Donbas area. Denying Russia an naval base in that area is crucial for the future. If Putin gains that area now, Russia will never give it up.
@Barrycelona: Turkey are in NATO dont forget. One could argue how committed they are but I believe they see themselves better served being aligned to the West. They also control the bosphorus access to the Med from the Black Sea
@SquideyeMagpie: You are right but I reckon Turkey or should I say Erdogan will suit themselves. Istanbul sits at the entrance and that vulnerability could be a reason for a deal between the two of them
3 military analysts worth their weight in gold, Wesley Clarke, David Petraeus and Tom Clonan.
have your say