The HSE is currently testing around 5,000 people a day for coronavirus, but that was expected to increase.
At a virtual press conference at Citywest in Dublin, HSE Chief Operations Officer Anne O’Connor said around 10,700 people were currently waiting for Covid-19 tests in Ireland, with over 4,000 waiting to get a test appointment.
She said the average time for results from tests was a matter of days but a change in testing criteria and scaling up of labs would improve those times.
There were now 2,415 confirmed cases of Covid19 cases in Ireland and 36 deaths related to the virus.
As of March 26, there were 29 cases in Kilkenny and five or less in Carlow but it was yet to become clear whether Carlow patients at St Lukes Hospital had been added to Killkenny’s number.
The latest data from Health Proection Surveilence Centre shoes that as of midnight on Thursday 26 March (1,904 cases):
- 53% are male and 46% are female, with 91 clusters involving 351 cases
- the median age of confirmed cases is 46 years
- 489 cases (26%) have been hospitalised
- Of those hospitalised, 67 cases have been admitted to ICU
- 445 cases are associated with healthcare workers
- Dublin has the highest number of cases at 1070, (56% of all cases) followed by Cork with 184 cases (10%)
- Of those for whom transmission status is known: community transmission accounts for 52%, close contact accounts for 23%, travel abroad accounts for 25%
Try not to get overwhelmed by everything you hear or read around #coronavirus. We can all take steps to keep ourselves well. https://t.co/Z3zOGHbcdf#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/8kLbelTYMU
— HSE Ireland (@HSELive) March 28, 2020
