There has been chaos on a number of Dublin Airport flights after Covid cases were discovered on board at least 30 flights into the country resulting in passengers being asked to isolate.
As many as 7.5% of the cases reported in the last couple of weeks have been traced back to international travel.
Contact tracers have been busy reaching out to those who were close contacts. If passengers were sitting two rows in front, behind or to the side of a confirmed case, then contact tracers will reach out.
Niamh O'Beirne, the HSE's national lead for testing said that Covid-19 has been detected in as many as 30 flights a day in recent weeks.
She said: We're dealing with around 30 flights a day at the moment and that means you have 500 people or so to contact."
"What we do find is that transmission on flights is quite low, in the low percentages, 1 or 2%, and we do tend to find that the people who are positive on flights tend to be with the person who is positive, family members or friends travelling together."
This comes despite the hefty testing system currently in place at Dublin Airport as well as the supposed safety net of the EU digital cert.
Two private companies are carrying out Covid-19 testing at Dublin Airport. They are RocDoc Health Check and Randox.
RocDoc Health Check is charging anything between €49 - €199 for tests.
Randox is cheaper with tests costing between €49 and €69. They provide RT-PCR Covid 19 testing as well as rapid/anti-gen testing.
RocDoc offers a service with facilities located at the express green car park for drive-thru testing and at the north terminal for walk-in testing.
Randox testing is carried out at their Randox Travel Centre which is close to the terminal 2 short-term car park.
With flights from Dublin Airport taking off at all hours, it's important the testing operates on similar hours.
RocDoc's walk-in test centre in the north terminal is operated on a 24/7 basis. Their drive-thru centre is open from 08:00 - 19:00.
Randox is open from 02:00 - 20:00.
As of August 16, another 1,558 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed with 262 patients in hospital, of which 51 are in ICU.
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