Top doctor Paul Reid said Covid-19 is “running rife” in our communities as 9,006 new cases were confirmed today.
The HSE chief confirmed that the levels of the virus are incredible high with positivity rates of almost 50% being seen on tests at the minute.
It comes as the Department of Health confirmed a further 9,006 new cases of the virus.
He said: “There is no doubt now that Covid-19 is absolutely running rife in our communities.
“There is an unparalleled level of testing volumes coming forward.
“If you think that you have Covid, it’s most likely that you have it.
“What it does tell us is how rampant it is in the community, if we can all think back we were talking about what happens when it gets to 3% or 5% levels of positivity what actions we trigger so we have moved well beyond that now.
“There is a peak at some stage and we aren’t at that by any stretch just yet, but we don’t know we are at the early stages.
“What we expected is happening because it does accelerate quite quickly, we know it transmits five times quicker than Delta and that’s exactly what’s happening in the community.
Thankfully the health system is still holding “relatively stable” and has not surged to levels that hospitals can’t handle.
Speaking on Morning Ireland, Mr Reid said: “It is still holding relatively stable, our ICU is certainly holding stable, we are seeing about 60 to 68 admissions a day which is in line with what we saw with Delta.
“The surge of cases in the community has not yet significantly affected staffing in hospitals.
“Coming out of the Delta wave we were up to close to 6,000 hospital staff out with Covid related sickness and that has come down to just over 4,000 late last week.
“We would hope to see that come down but there is no doubt we will start to see the impacts of Omicron as we are seeing across all sectors.”
