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Health chiefs have urged the public to make personal judgments about what is \u201cpossible, sensible and safe\u201d to do over the Christmas holidays.<\/p>\nHealth chiefs have urged the public to make personal judgments about what is \u201cpossible, sensible and safe\u201d to do over the Christmas holidays.<\/p>\n
HSE boss Paul Reid made a plea to people to keep their number of contacts down and to \u201cbe realistic\u201d about the festive period.<\/p>\n
He said the health service is going into Christmas in a much stronger position because of investments and supports that have been put in place to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
However, he warned that what happens in the next few weeks is \u201ckey\u201d to the heath service sustaining a strong position.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we head into Christmas and New Year, a very special time, it\u2019s also important that we all be realistic and make very personal judgments about what\u2019s possible, sensible and what\u2019s safe to do in the coming weeks,\u201d Mr Reid said at the HSE\u2019s briefing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to avoid what I call a dangerous confluence of risks, which would be on a projected high number of cases over the Christmas and New Year periods, but amplified by a high number of contacts for every one of those cases, and all at the same time coming together at the peak of our services.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can all kind of look forward to 2021 with greater hope and greater optimism with the vaccine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that the emergence of the vaccine will be good for the health service, will be good for the economy, will be good for society, and it will be good for the public wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Reid said the vaccine gives the country a \u201cstrong tool\u201d in the fight against Covid-19, but he said it would be some time before the country sees the benefit from the vaccination program.<\/p>\n
He said there has been a slow, downward trend in the number of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus, which was down to 203 on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
He added that the number of ICU patients, however, has increased to 37.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Christmas is a different Christmas, it\u2019s a Christmas where we\u2019re all living in a global pandemic,\u201d Mr Reid said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe personal judgments that we make and how we live, how we visit, how we meet our friends and family over Christmas, will be key to protecting the health service.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know some people have an intention and a natural and understandable intention, to say \u2018I will have a higher number of contacts for a few days over Christmas, and then I will reduce them rapidly\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, the circumstances that we know will happen with that, a high number of contacts will lead to a high spread of the virus.<\/p>\n
\u201cA higher number of contacts places a huge demand on our contact testing and tracing, as well as our hospital services.\u201d<\/p>\n
The HSE is also reclassifying partners of pregnant women as an \u201cessential companion\u201d, which allows partners to attend the anomaly scan from next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is due to the current low levels of Covid infection that we\u2019re experiencing across the community in general,\u201d Mr Reid added.<\/p>\n
More than two million tests have been carried out since the outbreak of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Almost 78,500 swabs were completed this week, while demand for community testing has increased by 3 per cent over the last week.<\/p>\n
The contact tracing team made more than 8,500 phone calls last week, while there is an average of 3.5 contacts per person.<\/p>\n
HSE chief clinical officer Colm Henry said that Ireland has the lowest 14-day incidence rate of Covid-19 in the EU.<\/p>\n
It now stands at 80 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 people.<\/p>\n