HSE boss Paul Reid has said the country will see “significant peaks” of Covid-19 very soon.
Mr Reid was in front of the Oireachtas Covid-19 Committee this morning and said what we are seeing now is probably what we will be living with for the future.
Local spikes of the disease could become the new reality and plans are focused now on agility, TDs were told.
Mr Reid said: “Ultimately, however, as we have seen over the past few weeks in particular, while everybody had predominantly been talking about when we might see a second surge, I think the reality is that what we are seeing in the country right now is probably what we are going to be living with for the future with this virus.
“We are going to see significant peaks and, we hope, significant troughs very soon and those changes may not always be national.
“They could be regional and, in some cases, local.
“That is the new reality for us in terms of living with this virus and the transmission we have seen to date.
“Therefore, our plans are now not so much around a second surge and a mass scaling up or scaling down.
“The focus now is around agility, how we adapt, scale up and scale down, and how we try to get back our services, which I referenced a while ago.”
Meanwhile, HSE Chief Clinical Officer said saliva tests for school children is a preferred test, according to health experts who have examined the issue.
However, he said the question is whether the test is sensitive enough to be applied but a decision by the expert advisory of NPHET is to be issued next week.
Niamh O’Beirne, the HSE’s lead on testing, told the Committee that only 50% of people are returning for their Covid-19 day seven test.
She said: “Somewhere between 70% and 80% of people will show up for day 0 tests, and sometimes it gets closer to 85%.
“On the day seven tests, it is closer to 50%.
“Looking at the age profiles, the cohorts who have the most difficulty tend to be the very young and the more elderly.”
