By Kenneth Fox
HSE director Paul Reid has said that community transmission is a major driver for the number of new cases recently.
Speaking at a briefing in UCD this afternoon, Mr Reid said "there has been a clear increase of community transmission" of the virus.
He said recent referrals for COVID-19 testing is being driven primarily by school children and people living in North Dublin.
Mr Reid acknowledged that there has been an increase in the number of people with anxiety and mental health issues, presenting to HSE services.
He said while it is concerning, he also said those people were not necessarily anxious about COVID-19.
Speaking about the recent figures the HSE director said "There have been 717 new cases in the past 14 days and 151 cases in the past seven days. There are currently six people in ICUs at the moment and 50 people across Irish hospitals."
He said the HSE has been dealing with a number of outbreaks, with the vast majority of them being in private homes settings.
There are currently 30 community testing centres across the country at the moment, with three pop up centres recently being established in Limerick, Tallaght and Kilkenny.
Serial testing
Meanwhile, Suzanne O'Connor from the HSE says there has been an increase in activity at hospitals recently, up 4 per cent on last week.
She also gave more detail about serial testing that has taken place:
"57,000 tests have been carried out overall in nursing homes, while in meat factories 13,000 tests have been completed, with a positivity rate of 0.27 per cent," she said.
She also explained how there are COVID and non-COVID pathways set up in hospitals to deal with the pandemic. There are currently 363 vacant beds in hospitals at the moment, she said.
Finally, Colm Henry the national clinical advisor and programme lead for acute hospitals said there has been a worrying trend of people needing to come into the hospital with the virus.
"We are seeing hospitalisation at a rate of two or three per day at the moment. You can't put a lid on a virus that spreads between young people. There are steep age-related illnesses.
He did reiterate though that both in Ireland and the rest of the world, 90 per cent of deaths have been people over 75 years of age.
He also said he is concerned with people presenting with an illness at a delayed stage, because of their concern of Covid-19.
