Health experts have renewed calls for further lockdown measures to curb the spread of Covid-19, after Ireland recorded the highest number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic that did not include any backlog.
1,012 new cases were recorded in the 24 hours up to midnight on Friday, in the highest daily number of cases since the height of the pandemic in April.
Three further deaths were reported, meaning the the total number Covid-19 related deaths has now reached 1,824 in the State.
Waiting until they’re overwhelmed is almost like saying, oh we got hit bad in March and April, 1,800 people died, let’s just wait for that to happen again and then we’ll react.
Infectious diseases specialist Professor Sam McConkey has said the country cannot wait until its hospitals are overwhelmed to take action.
“Waiting until they’re overwhelmed is almost like saying, oh we got hit bad in March and April, 1,800 people died, let’s just wait for that to happen again and then we’ll react,” he said.
“That’s about half the number of people who died in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It’s about half the people who died in the 9/11 event, it’s about nine jumbo jets, 737s, so waiting for that to happen a second time rather than acting to prevent it, in my view, is bad public policy.”
It comes as yesterday evening, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said all of the important indicators of the disease were deteriorating.
“I am very worried about the numbers we are seeing and how quickly they are deteriorating,” he said.
“The 14-day incidence rate has increased from 108 per 100,000 last Sunday, to 150 per 100,000 today, which represents a 39 per cent increase,” he said, adding that the test positivity rate had also “more than doubled in less than a fortnight,” now standing at 6.2 per cent.
Northern Ireland has seen a major surge of cases in recent weeks, recording a further 902 cases of the disease yesterday and over a thousand the day before, as the region experiences more cases than the Republic despite its smaller population.
Sinn Féin has said that the Republic's hospitals need to be ready to take patients from Northern Ireland if the outbreak continues to grow there.
The party’s health spokesman David Cullinane said that only an all-Ireland effort will work: “Well I think we’re already seeing patients being transferred from different hospitals within regions.
“If it is the case that we have to share hospital capacity across the Border, of course that should be examined. I think every option has to be on the table and I’ve seen saying that for some time.
“There is no response or no action that cannot be on the table in fighting this virus, so it has to be action on all fronts.”
