By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s hospitals cannot manage the current trajectory of its fast-growing COVID-19 outbreak and will cancel most non-urgent procedures this week to create as much spare critical care space as possible, its hospitals’ chief said on Monday.
Until recently Ireland had one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, leading the government to allow the reopening of most of the economy in December.
But the 14-day COVID-19 incidence rate per 100,000 people has more than quadrupled to 470 in the last two weeks. The country’s Chief Medical Officer said last week Ireland now had the “fastest-growing” incidence rate in the European Union.
COVID-19 hospital admissions are rising by 20% a day, and the number of patients being treated could surpass the first wave peak within a day or two, having reached 744 on Monday. There are 65 patients in intensive care units (ICU).
The head of Ireland’s health service operator said that on that trajectory, the total number in hospitals could hit 2,500 this month with between 250 and 430 in ICU. Public hospitals can surge ICU capacity safely to 375 and the health service is again seeking to take over private hospital ICU beds, Paul Reid said.
“I think we’ve run out of adjectives to describe how serious this is,” Reid told the Newstalk radio station.
“The numbers in that trajectory we cannot sustain. We will be taking actions this week to reduce and in most places eliminate non-urgent care across our hospitals. We are literally going back to where we were in March and April.”
Reid said the health service will likely report 7,000 daily COVID-19 cases in the coming days, “a frightening scale” versus the 200 or so reported each day a month ago. Daily cases peaked at 936 in the first wave in April, though testing was much lower.
While part of that is due to a backlog after the system came under strain, Reid said the real daily run rate is around 5,500 to 6,000 cases after the positive test rate soared to 30% on Sunday.
One local doctor in Louth, the second hardest-hit county that borders Northern Ireland, which is also in the grip of a surge in cases, said 90% of her COVID-19 referrals from Dec. 28 to Dec. 31 returned positive.
“I was referring symptoms as mild as head colds. If you think this is ‘not Covid’ and are about to meet up for that walk or go into work… Think again,” the general practitioner, Amy Morgan, said on Twitter.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
