The coronavirus is “very active” and replicating in the Irish community amid the arrival of a more infectious variant, Dr Colm Henry has said.
The chief clinical officer at the HSE said increased demand for testing saw a record 23,000 laboratory tests completed in one day on December 22nd.
There has also been a big increase in contact tracing, up from 9,000 calls per week to a current 30,000 per week.
“We're now certainly into a third surge — activity over the Christmas period shows that there is increased demand in testing,” Dr Henry said.
“Some of the referrals [for testing] through community testing centres, from the out-of-hours GP service have been very high.
“All this shows the virus is very active out there in the community and it's replicating — there are multiple outbreaks and we see also the arrival of this new strain from London and the south-east of England which is now the dominant strain there.”
Dr Henry said hospitals were experiencing “two stories” amid rising Covid-related admissions and lowered admissions for other seasonal illnesses.
“We are seeing two stories at present in hospitals. There has been a sharp rise in the admission in acute hospitals in the past week and those becoming sick with Covid within acute hospitals,” he said.
“The other side of the story we're seeing is a relatively new phenomenon for the Irish health care system in recent years — is a large number of empty beds... and a sharp decrease in the trolleys as compared to this time last year.”
Dr Henry said there were 1,467 empty beds in Irish hospitals as of last night.
“What is happening is one of the few unexpected bonuses of this pandemic... we've seen no lab recorded influenza cases to date this year,” he said.
“We've seen a sharp decrease in other seasonal viruses to the extent that other non-Covid illnesses are not presenting in the volumes we would usually expect around the Christmas period.”
However, Dr Henry warned that the current growth rate of Covid-19 meant the threat of hospitals becoming overwhelmed remained.
“Based on that growth rate we're seeing of Covid, of six to eight per cent per day, if this continues unmitigated without any change in the sharp upcurve that we're seeing we will certainly see large numbers of cases,” he said.
“[These] inevitably will translate into hospitalisations, occupancy of intensive care units and unfortunately death.”
Dr Henry also defended the pace of the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines in Ireland, saying it was not a question of speed, but a question of safety.
As other vaccines are approved the pace of the programme will increase, he said.
His comments come as the country’s chief medical officer has warned that there are higher levels of Covid-19 circulating in the community than recent case numbers reflect.
Dr Tony Holohan said he expects a large increase in case numbers over the coming days, due to the lower volume of tests being carried out over Christmas.
Meanwhile, the Tánaiste has said that he does not envisage current restrictions to suppress the spread of Covid-19 lifting soon.
Leo Varadkar said there was a case for Level 5 restrictions remaining in place until there was widespread vaccination, but any such plan needed to be sustainable.
