Health officials will meet today amid growing concerns over the rise in coronavirus cases in a number of counties.
The National Public Health Emergency Team is particularly concerned about Waterford, Louth and Donegal – where a third of recent cases are among 15 to 24 year olds.
30 of yesterday’s 234 cases were in Donegal, and a further two deaths were recorded nationally. (more on that here).
Acting Chief Medical Officer Ronan Glynn says we should all choose a small number of people to socialise with in the coming weeks, he asks “Go to your football match but then don’t go to the pub or go to the pub but don’t go to the football match, bring your children to the playground but don’t bring your children to your neighbour’s house down the road, these are choices we all have to make, we can’t have everything that we had eight months ago, it’s not the time for house parties, it’s not the time for big communion celebrations, it’s not the time for big family gatherings”.
NPHET says there’s a “worrying” number of people being admitted to intensive care with Covid 19.
One to two new admissions are being seen every day, and a rising number are under the age of 45.
Professor Philip Nolan says they’re noticing a clear pattern “It’s worrying to begin to report, we would have said as cases began to rise several weeks ago that hospitalisations would be delayed and intensive care admissions delayed further so beginning last week, but quite clearly this week, we are seeing an increase in the numbers in intensive care and in the numbers of admissions every day”.
The World Health Organisation says even a mild form of Covid-19 can cause serious damage to a young person.
Executive director Dr Mike Ryan says “Again I would say to younger people, you’re not immune from this disease, we’ve seen with symptomatic individuals, 19% I think in the Swiss study of those symptomatic individuals, not severe symptoms, younger people, mild to moderate symptoms, 19% of them had more of a 10% drop in VO2 in the convalescent period, they are not processing oxygen as well as they were before they were infected”.
For the latest figures and how your area is faring see here
