Ireland is experiencing a summer wave of Covid with cases expected to increase over the next two to three weeks, a leading immunologist has warned.
Christine Loscher, Professor of Immunology at Dublin City University, said we only need to look at the experience of other countries to see what is coming down the track for Ireland.
“We have just seen what Portugal has been through. They have had an uptake in cases but they seem to be on the decline now. It was a relatively short three or four week period where BA.5 took off and, because it is more transmissible, they had more cases.
“We are not really going to know how many cases we have because we have quite restrictive PCR testing at the moment. We are doing about 5,000 [tests] a day. It is nowhere near what we were doing at the height of the pandemic,” she told the Brendan O’Connor Show on RTÉ Radio.
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The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has meanwhile called for a return to mandatory mask wearing in crowded places and on public transport.
Figures from the HPSC indicate that 537 patients with Covid-19 were in Irish hospitals this morning. This is the highest number recorded since April when cases were on a downward trend.
General secretary of the INMO Phil Ni Sheaghdha told Virgin Media News that additional measures are needed given the uptick in cases, particularly in hospitals.
“There are very real reasons why masks have been shown to slow down transmission and that is what we need now because our hospitals are overcrowded to a level that we normally don’t see in winter - and it’s June,” she said.
Prof Loscher said one of the issues coming to the fore was the fact that Ireland was not providing as many free antigen tests to the public as it was when numbers were higher.
“It is harder for people to monitor. Usually when you reported a positive antigen test you were able to get a supply of antigen tests for other people in your household. You can’t get that anymore.”
Prof Loscher, who currently has Covid, said there were six people in her household. “Antigen testing for six people every day is a lot. We had three positives and three negatives. I think that is an issue for people,” she added.
“It was almost an incentive to report your positive antigen test because at least you got access to antigen testing for everyone in your household. With that now not there, I think a lot of people would say that there is no point in reporting. So we are not going to know how many cases.”
She believes there could currently be as many as 8,000 to 10,000 Covid cases in Ireland every day.
She urged people who are eligible for the booster to come forward for their vaccine, adding we need to go back to our personal responsibility in terms of minimising risk.
“We already know what those tools are. Be aware of the environment you are in. And if you do think it is a riskier environment it would be a good idea to put a mask back on. There is nothing we can do to prevent us from getting it but there are things you can do to minimise your risk. Mask wearing is one of them.
“It is not a complete prevention but it is a very good tool... I travelled recently [on a flight] and I was one of four people on the plane wearing a mask.”
She was speaking following a warning by chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan that rising cases of Covid-19 were at risk of putting “increased pressure on the hospital system” in the coming weeks, reducing capacity for patients suffering from other ailments or needing emergency treatment.
In an update on the pandemic to Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly, Dr Holohan wrote that the “acute hospital system remains under considerable pressure”.
The update was written on June 10th – when there were 355 inpatients with Covid-19 across the country’s hospitals. Since then, that figure has risen to 515 as of 8am on Friday morning.
Dr Holohan said that while mortality associated with the disease remains relatively stable, “there has been a recent increase in the number of notified outbreaks in some key settings which continues to be monitored”.
Concern over the strain on hospital emergency departments was heightened on Friday when the State’s health service watchdog issued a damning report about chronic overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said extra resources had been allocated by the Government to increase bed capacity in emergency departments across the State, and extra resources would continue to be allocated.
Mr Martin said part of the problem stemmed from the fact that there were significant delays in discharging patients from general wards to nursing homes, thus slowing up the freeing up of hospital beds which would allow patients to be admitted more quickly from emergency departments.
“In terms of management of hospitals, one of the issues has been the degree to which Covid-19 has disrupted egress from hospitals because so many nursing homes where we had outbreaks have not been in a position to take people who are leaving the acute phase of their treatment,” he pointed out.
The current wave of Covid infections is also affecting social and cultural activities. Abbey Theatre has been forced to cancel 10 performances of its headline play - Brian Friel’s Translations - due to a Covid outbreak.
