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THE HSE IS urging the public to apply for testing, swabbing and contact tracing positions over the coming weeks, HSE CEO Paul Reid said today.
Speaking this morning, Reid said that the average number of tests carried out per day last week was 12,000.
Almost 62,000 tests were completed across the 46 labs in the last week, he added, with 16,000 of the swabs taken part of serial testing of healthcare and meat plant workers.
Resources have been redeployed throughout Covid-19 to meet testing demand at various points, Reid said, adding that the HSE will be seeking applications for paid roles in testing, swabbing and contact tracing in the coming weeks.
“We’d urge the public to put forward their names [for these roles],” Reid said.
Over 375 HSE corporate staff have been deployed to testing and contact tracing, it was confirmed. A significant number of clinical staff were also deployed to take swabs when health services were stood down in the early days of Covid-19.
Worrying to hear from the HSE today that around 25% of people are not turning up for their swabs at community sites.
— Michelle Hennessy (@michellehtweet) September 3, 2020
Among close contacts of confirmed cases, 20% don't turn up for their Day 1 test and around half fail to turn up for their Day 7 test.
At this morning’s HSE briefing, Reid said that 3,000 tests have been completed among meat plant workers as part of the HSE’s serial testing programme, with a positivity rate of 0.4%.
Testing will be expanded to workers in other food processing sectors such as fish and mushrooms, he said.
Plans for serial testing in Direct Provision centres, which have seen a number of outbreaks in recent weeks, are “well commenced”.
HSE Chief Operations Officer Dr Anne O’Connor, meanwhile, said there were 156 patients on trolleys this morning.
O’Connor said “trolleys are different” this year as many Emergency Departments have set up dedicated isolation spaces, adding that numbers are still significantly down on the 400 or so patients on trolleys this time last year.
It comes after health officials confirmed one further deaths form Covid-19 in Ireland and 89 new cases.
The chair of NPHET’s Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group Professor Philip Nolan said yesterday that an analysis of new cases in the past week found that the epidemic is growing “very slowly” across Ireland.
At this morning’s briefing, CEO Reid warned that a “significant proportion” of people arriving for tests are giving incorrect details which is delaying the delivery of their test result.
Giving a landline number, Reid said, means that a text cannot be sent.
Dr Sarah Doyle, HSE Specialist in Public Health Medicine, said that about one in five contacts of a symptomatic case are found to be positive by the HSE’s contact tracing teams while one in 20 contacts of an asymptomatic case are positive.
With reporting by Michelle Hennessy at the HSE Briefing
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Brilliant news, that total improvement of 126 Million Euro in income tax, caused by 50,000 people returning to paid employment, will just about cover the consultants bill for Irish Water!!!
Time to ditch the USC so.
So even though the article states that there’s still a deficit of €2.3 billion you think it’s a good idea to get rid of a tax, thus increasing the deficit more??
Yes I hate it.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the canidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy–to be followed by a dictatorship.”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler
Guys this is spin,EU elections on the way,everything is great in Ireland,pure bullshit,arrest all of these traiters
Great!
So we don’t need to privatise the water supply then?
No, we’ve just paid for the consultants. It means your water charges will be 0.000001 cent per litre less.
What a great bunch of stand up guys. Sure you couldn’t have done it without us. Hope the water charges come soon, can’t wait to swell the government coffers further. Give yourselves a clap on the back for a job well done.
Ah no dont use your own hand, take mine, sure I have two.
Nothing to do with the property tax Michael, no ?? If it’s making no difference then stop collecting it and give it back.
Well there is still the matter of the €2.3 billion deficit! Really the only way that this can be tackled is if they can somehow get more people off the live register and back making a contribution to the tax take.
The frightening thing at the moment is that if there’s a deficit of €2.3 billion then it is completely impossible for this to be covered. If you assume that every person on the live register found work tomorrow there would be a quarterly increase of about €900 million directly as a result of less expenditure on social welfare. This isn’t even half the deficit for the current quarter covered.
Yes but, add back the income tax UCS and PRSI from these newly employed.
If we did not pay for the bank bail-out, private debt made public or NAMA we would be running at a surplus.
The tax take from multi-nationals was down 35%, so clearly the ordinary worker and citizen is paying all the additional taxes, charges levies and others have had cuts in pay, benefits and allowances.
We would be a relatively rich nation if we had not made private debt public. Morgan Kelly estimated that 3 hard budgets would have balanced the books had we not been so generous to crooks. Not one of whom has served a day in prison! That is the cause of Ireland’s economic mess, and nothing else. We must demand Kenny stops paying out such money and that the our good friends at the ECB takes on the debt.
It’s still a deficit lads, come back to me when you stop taxing the hole off of me to pay increments in the public sector.
Most of that deficit is sadly national debt & interest payments.
The primary deficit is almost eliminated.
It’s about -3%, so it sounds like a good time to go out and spend to me.
Well done Noonan. Give that man a Bonus and a Pension Top Up.
Something has to yie in with their unemployment drivel from earlier
Liquidate your assets before you pop your clogs. Revenue are relentless when it comes to inheritance tax.
Death and taxes – what do you want first?
There doing a fantastic job !!
This means they can start giving back!!!
Give it back,even if we continue on course for the rest of the year we still have to borrow well over 9 € billion this year,and this is just to pay day to day expences and keep the country moving,we are still a long way off from ballancing the budget and paying our way.
Ah the lads are sound please noon an if u want to drop by my house and take my remaining disposable income I will give u that as well,all €20 of it
The €138 million drop in corporation tax is significant.
Pharmaceutical company revenue was down a lot in 2013 because of the patent cliff.
Is the deficit quoted including interest payments we are making on our debt?
The amount we are paying on interest payments every year is pretty shocking. Something like 3 billion. Feels like we have been dealing with loan sharks.
The word compliance in relation to the LPT reminds me of the answer given to Prince John by the Sheriff of Nottingham when asked how the peasants were responding to the latest tax imposed on them. “Once we threatened to burn their homes down they complied, particularly after we had made an example of those that refused, your Lordship”.
WEEEEEEEEEEED SELL it an Make millions More .!!!
I should hope so with all the new taxes! What a dumb press release
So how much are we having to borrow every month now? Still about a billion?
Less people working. Tax take up. Somebody is been screwed, wonder who?
Ah, come on guys. This is a good news story. They’re wouldn’t be an election just around the corner now, would there ?
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