Covid-19: 30,423 positive cases, 15 deaths reported in four days

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Covid-19 testing

By Q Radio News

The Department of Health has released the first Covid-19 data of the year and it shows 30,423 positive cases and 15 deaths were reported in the four days from December 31 to January 3.

There are 348 Covid-positive patients in hospital with 31 of them in intensive care.

25 of the Covid patients in ICU are being ventilated.

There are Covid outbreaks in 112 care homes.

The death toll since the start of the pandemic stands at 2,995.

Five of the 15 deaths reported today occurred within the four-day reporting period.

The seven-day infection rate has reached a record high of 2,673.5 per 100,000 people.

Derry City and Strabane has the highest rate (4,453.2) followed by Fermanagh and Omagh (3,598).

Mid and East Antrim has the lowest infection rate (1,876.9).

The age group with the highest percentage of people testing positive is 20 to 24 year olds (15%).

Meanwhile, chief scientific adviser Professor Ian Young says as many as one in 20 people had Covid-19 in some parts of Northern Ireland over the festive period.

Professor Ian Young told the PA news agency that with limits on the numbers of PCR tests, it is likely the true figure was as high as one in 10 last week.

He said the virus is transmitting at “extraordinarily high levels in the community”, higher levels than at any previous stage of the epidemic.

“Omicron is very very transmissible compared with other forms of the virus so what we’re seeing is a very rapid rise to a peak and then hopefully an equally rapid fall after that,” he said.

“There are parts of Northern Ireland where close to one person in 20 had a positive PCR test in the last week and whenever you factor in the fact that not everybody gets tested then it is very likely that there were parts in Northern Ireland where at least one person in 10 had the virus last week.

“I don’t think we’re quite at the peak in terms of case numbers yet but because we only have 20,000 tests a day available to us roughly in terms of PCR, it’s going to be the case that increasingly the actual case numbers we measure aren’t everybody who has the virus in the community.

"I don’t think we’ll see numbers rise a lot more than they are at the moment but the virus will continue to increase probably for one to two weeks.”

Professor Ian Young said he expects to see the peak of case numbers in the Omicron surge coming in early to mid January.

In terms of hospital admissions and occupancy he said expects to see a peak in mid-late January.

Meanwhile he said the Delta variant is still circulating in the community but numbers have been falling steadily.

“It is outcompeted effectively by Omicron and as a result Delta is fading away, probably more rapidly than would have been the case if we hadn’t had the Omicron form of the virus,” he said.

“We have known for quite a while that Omicron is significantly less severe than Delta in terms of disease, the estimates were initially somewhere between 20%-80% less severe, we still need more information on that but increasingly it looks as though it is more likely to be towards the 50%-80% end of severity rather than 20%-50% … so that’s good news and that should help to protect our hospitals against very large numbers although admissions are rising, hospital occupancy is rising … and this is still going to be a very significant wave in terms of hospital pressures, particularly when combined with the number of staff who may be absent as a result of being infected.”

Professor Young also indicated that further restrictions at this stage in the surge are unlikely to be effective.

“Generally the earlier you intervene in a wave and the more strongly you intervene then the greater the impact will be in terms of reducing it, so as we get further into this wave then the impact of any intervention will be less than if it had been conducted earlier on,” he said.

“We always knew there would be very large numbers of cases, I don’t think it is possible to avoid that although we can reduce it somewhat through the measures that have been taken.

"The most important thing is what is the pressure going to be in our hospital system and can we maintain that at levels where the hospitals do not become overwhelmed.”

He described pressures in hospitals currently as “severe” and said the expected further increase in Covid-19 admissions over the next two-three weeks will make things challenging.

He said any intervention in terms of restrictions “will always have some impact in terms of slowing down or reducing the rate of transmission” but the impact takes around two weeks in terms of cases and longer in terms of hospital numbers.

“Given the speed of this wave then intervention would have less effect now than it would have done earlier on,” he said.

Professor Young said he would advise the public to get vaccinated and follow the basic public health advice to guard against Covid-19.

“Boosters are the most effective way of protecting people against severe illness which leads to hospitalisation, it is still possible to become infected with the virus even after a booster but you’re much less likely to need admission to hospital and that’s becoming increasingly clear,” he said.

He also urged the following of guidance such as those with symptoms not mixing with other people, meeting outdoors where possible or well ventilated indoor settings, wearing face coverings and making good use of lateral flow tests, particularly before mixing with others.

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