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The Government and NPHET were both caught by surprise over the recent rapid increase in COVID-19 cases, a Junior Minister has said.
Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne defended the Government s decision to allow hospitality to reopen along with household visits as part of the easing of restrictions before Christmas.
This is despite recommendations from NPHET that only one should be permitted from December 1st.
Additionally, the Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan warned in early December that a challenging level of cases in early January is more likely than not .
It comes as the CEO of the HSE said we have yet to see the worst impacts of the recent surge in coronavirus on the health service.
Taking to Twitter, he wrote: “Further testing this week of #SARSCoV2 samples dating from #December 23rd to 29th has detected 9 additional #UKvariant cases in #Ireland. This brings the total number of cases identified @nvrlucdireland to 16 (of 169 tested to date). As a random, albeit small, selection of cases primarily from the community, these data would suggest that the #SARSCoV2 #UKvariant - at a proportion of
Updated: 2 Jan 2021, 14:44
COVID-19 cases could peak at 6,000 a day in the coming days according to Professor Philip Nolan.
The Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group said today s case total will reach in excess of 3,000.
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Prof Nolan said he expects Ireland to see cases in the thousands for the next week or ten days at leastCredit: PA:Press Association
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The virus modelling expert called on the public to stay homeCredit: PA:Press Association
Prof Nolan said he expects Ireland to see new cases in the thousands for the next week or ten days at least.
Speaking on RTE Radio 1 s Saturday with Katie Hannon Prof Nolan said: We re turning this around from a very high peak of several thousand cases per day before we see cases come back down again.
Updated / Saturday, 2 Jan 2021
21:19
There is now a total of 96,926 confirmed Covid-19 infections here
There have been 3,394 new cases of Covid-19 notified to the Department of Health. It was also confirmed that four more people have died with coronavirus.
Up to half of this record number of new infections is believed to be due to a delay in the formal reporting of cases that was flagged several days ago.
The cumulative number of Covid-19 cases here is now 96,926 while the death toll has reached 2,252.
There are 56 people in ICU with the disease, this is a rise of nine since yesterday. There are 607 people in hospital with Covid-19 and there were 71 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Updated: 1 Jan 2021, 10:37
HSE boss Paul Reid has said Covid-19 is now absolutely rampant in the community .
He has urged vulnerable people to be on their highest guard and said the situation is the worst-case scenario .
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A sign outside a testing centre at the RDS in Dublin
Speaking on RTE s Morning Ireland, he said: It is absolutely rampant in the community and we know that for a fact. Everyone is at extreme high risk now at contracting the virus.
He said Ireland may hit 3,000 daily cases over the next few days.
Reid added: The real picture over the last few days is most likely getting close to 3,000 cases a day.