Ongoing threats posed by the Delta variant could see officials reporting over 3,000 cases a day by the middle of September as Ireland’s restrictions ease.
In what was described as an ‘optimistic scenario’, Dr Tony Holohan warned that the spike in cases will likely be seen among the unvaccinated as we return to normality on a phased basis.
Alongside the increase in case numbers, the Chief Medical Officer also predicts between 500-700 Covid patients needing hospitalisation, and around 80-130 in intensive care.
In a letter to Health Minister, Stephen Donnelly, Dr Holohan wrote: “While the outlook over the coming days and weeks is very uncertain, we can expect the situation to get worse before we begin to see an improvement.
"Revised modelling scenarios calibrated to 11 August 2021 show, for optimistic scenarios, cases counts peaking at 2,500-3,000 cases per day in mid-September, with later peaks in healthcare demand seeing 500-700 people in hospital and 80-130 people in intensive care."
The latest outlook for Ireland amid the ongoing pandemic is "set against a background of the dominance of Delta in Ireland", says Dr Holohan.
"A variant which is significantly more transmissible and less susceptible to vaccines than previous variants.
"This poses a very substantial threat, particularly to those who are not yet fully protected through vaccination."
His warning comes after the World Health Organisation today identified a new strain of the virus that may be more resilient to existing vaccines.
The ‘Mu’ strain originated in Colombia and was first detected in January of this year. Since then, it has caused some ‘larger outbreaks’ in other South American countries and in Europe.
In its latest bulletin, the WHO said it will now be monitoring Mu for changes on an ongoing basis.
"Since its first identification in Colombia in January 2021, there have been a few sporadic reports of cases of the Mu variant and some larger outbreaks have been reported from other countries in South America and in Europe,” it said.
"Although the global prevalence of the Mu variant among sequenced cases has declined and is currently below 0.1%, the prevalence in Colombia (39%) and Ecuador (13%) has consistently increased.
"The epidemiology of the Mu variant in South America, particularly with the co-circulation of the Delta variant, will be monitored for changes."
