3,666 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Ireland in the last 24 hours.
As of 8am today, 638 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 130 are in ICU.
The update comes as Ireland’s favourite scientist has slammed NPHET’s top docs for fighting the use of antigen tests and dismissing them as useless "snake oil."
Professor Luke O’Neill has always been a strong supporter of the role antigens can play in the fight against Covid.
And this position is now held by Government too, with the planned subsidisation of antigens for the whole country expected to be announced in the coming days.
But many members of NPHET, including Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, and Philip Nolan, the expert medical group’s head of modelling, have long been against the tests being part of the wider toolkit to tackle the pandemic.
In an update on Monday, Dr Holohan said it was important to remember the "serious risk" that Covid-19 poses to everyone.
The Chief Medical Officer said case numbers were "concerning" after a further 5,634 people were reported as having contracted the virus.
"We know that every 1000 cases of Covid-19 will lead to 20-25 people in hospital and between 2-3 people requiring critical care in ICU," he stated.
"We also know that, since June of this year, 1 in 4 people who had Covid-19 and required critical care in our hospitals have sadly passed away.
"This information is not easy to hear, but it is an important reminder of the serious risk that Covid-19 continues to pose to all of us.
"We can change the trajectory of this disease by breaking the chains of transmission and the best way to do that is to continue to adhere to all the layers of the public health advice. "We know that this will work, and we know that people are making many additional efforts to drive down incidence of disease in the community."
