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One in four people are not showing up for their Covid-19 appointment, prompting health chiefs to warn about the risk of spreading the virus.<\/p>\nOne in four people are not showing up for their Covid-19 appointment, prompting health chiefs to warn about the risk of spreading the virus.<\/p>\n
Figures show that around 25% of people who have been given appointments for a Covid-19 test are failing to appear.<\/p>\n
HSE officials have issued pleas to the public to ensure they attend appointments as it is becoming an \u201cissue\u201d at swabbing sites across the country.<\/p>\n
HSE chief operations officer Anne O\u2019Connor said: \u201cOn a daily basis you can have 3,000 or 4,000 appointments, so if a quarter of those aren\u2019t turning up that is a significant number of appointments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s challenging as we have to have (testing) capacity for schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs these appointments are automatically scheduled we are finding there are sites where people are not availing and that means it\u2019s an appointment someone else could have used.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to put out a plea to people to please attend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Reid, head of the HSE, said however there has been a significant increase in the number of close contacts attending their \u201cday zero\u201d test but the number drops from 80% attendance to around 50% for the \u201cseven-day\u201d test.<\/p>\n
Mr Reid said that around 8% of close contacts test positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we have low positivity rate of 1.5% in overall tests, 8% of contacts test positive and if you are symptomatic it\u2019s closer to 20%,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Dr Sarah Doyle, specialist in public health medicine, said that one in five of close contacts who are symptomatic will be positive for Covid-19.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would really urge people who are close contacts to make sure they turn up for the appointment,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Connor added: \u201cIt\u2019s not an option to pursue people but we would ask people to work with us and while we can\u2019t police the population we can encourage them to attend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Reid said the turnaround time for a test is now 2.2 days over the last week.<\/p>\n
He also urged the public to ensure they provide the correct contact details for their close contacts.<\/p>\n
Mr Reid said that serial testing in direct provision centers is expected to start next week with around 7,500 residents and some 500 staff to be tested.<\/p>\n
It is expected to take around two weeks to complete the testing.<\/p>\n
Mr Reid also said that their \u201ckey concern\u201d is also other health services outside of Covid-19.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very conscious that our hospitals are beginning to see people coming through in relation to, it might be issues in terms of the lockdown, whether it\u2019s mental health issues or anxiety issues across younger people and older people, or indeed other services,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe equally need to have a focus on the wider health services.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Connor also said that there has been a \u201csignificant increase\u201d in people requiring key mental health services.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would see that increasing more as children return to school,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
New cases off Covid-19 has been trending upwards over the past four weeks, Mr Reid added.<\/p>\n
Figures show that the average number of new cases over the past seven days is 120 per day, up from 104 from the previous week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe number of ICU patients remains stable at six confirmed cases in our hospitals, and the number of confirmed cases in our hospitals overall has been trending upwards over the past four weeks, it\u2019s still reasonably stable at a total of 39,\u201d Mr Reid added.<\/p>\n