Public health officials say there are early indications of a fall in Covid-19 infections among healthcare workers due to the rollout of vaccinations.
Prof Karina Butler, chairwoman of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, told a Department of Health briefing on Thursday that they were “beginning to hear glimmers in terms of the rate of healthcare infection beginning to come down”.
She described the emerging indications as “the first green shoots of spring”.
Prof Butler pointed to the effect seen in Israel, whose vaccination programme is further advanced and where cases have fallen steeply in older age groups after vaccination.
However, Prof Philip Nolan of the National Public Health Emergency Team cautioned that “we’d need to see a particularly large number of green shoots before we call it spring”.
A further 52 deaths of Covid-19 patients were reported by Nphet. This brings to 3,846 the total number of deaths in the pandemic.
Nphet also reported 866 confirmed cases of the disease, bringing to 206,801 the total number of cases in the Republic.
The deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn warned that parents and their children should stay at home during the mid-term break next week, and should avoid meeting up with other families.
“We can’t afford to let up for a week. Of course, get out for exercise but you’re outside, act safely by wearing a mask, using hand hygiene, please don’t meet up with other families and if you do meet people, keep your distance.”
Asked about the re-opening of schools, given the incidence among children is lower than it was last October, he said the level of disease was still “way too high” to accommodate the mass mobility associated with schools.
While he was “really keen” for schools to re-open, he said “that’s not (for) today”.
Dr Glynn, responding to questions on the issue, said neither he nor chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan, has been vaccinated yet.
While he would love to get vaccinated, he said it would not be appropriate before all older people and healthcare workers were inoculated.
The prioritisation list for the Covid-19 vaccine rollout is under active review, Prof Butler told the briefing. There have been calls for some groups, including seriously ill patients, to be accorded a higher priority in the list.
Prof Butler said new information was being collated at present and this would result in the list being reviewed.
Officials said 11 cases of the variant first identified in South Africa have been reported in Ireland, up two on last week. No cases of another variant that emerged in Brazil have been identified here.
Ten per cent of all positive cases are now being sequenced to see what variant is involved, they said.
The 14-day incidence of the disease now stands at 300 cases per 100,000 people nationally. Monaghan has the highest county incidence, followed by Carlow.
The reproduction number, a measure of how many other people a case infects, now stands between 0.6 to 0.8, according to Prof Nolan, chair of the Nphet epidemiological modelling advisory group.
So far this month, there have been 327 Covid-19 deaths, compared to 1,332 in January.
Prof Nolan said great improvements continue to be made, but he cautioned about a slowing of progress in relation to case numbers, positivity and the number of people going to workplaces.
While huge progress has been achieved, incidence is still four times what it was in December and 100 times levels seen last July, he cautioned.
One reason for the slowing decline in cases was the resumption in testing of contacts of cases, he said, which has picked up many asymptomatic cases. But even when these cases are excluded, the decline in cases is slowing somewhat.
The proportion of cases testing positive has stayed at 6 to 7 per cent for over a week. Meanwhile, the rate of decline of cases has slowed from 7-9 per cent to 4-6 per cent.
The number of people travelling to work is half of normal levels, but twice was it was during the first lockdown last April.
While the number of deaths occurring each day remains high, we are approaching the end of the current wave of mortality, Prof Nolan said.
There could be as few as 100 cases a day by mid-March if current efforts are continued, Prof Nolan forecast.
Ireland is still on course to reduce daily cases to 200-400 by the end of this month, and to cut numbers to 100-200 by March 15th, he said. Hospitalisations are forecast to drop to 500-600 by the end of the month and 250-400 by mid-March.
ICU numbers are harder to estimate, he said, but should fall to between 70 and 100 by the end of February, and 50 “well into March”.
Last week, there were as many cases as in any week last year, while ICU numbers were higher than at any point, Dr Glynn pointed out.
He said he knew this was a difficult message for people to take on board but it showed the need to work from home if at all possible.
Noting the higher proportion of cases recently in Dublin, Dr Glynn said this was “something we need to watch”. Officials are not sure whether this is due to contacts testing positive or a random effect.
Dr Glynn said every healthcare worker should get vaccinated for their, and their patients’, sake. However, some might have concerns or underlying conditions and their issues had to be addressed.
Earlier, the HSE said the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 had dropped below 1,000 for the first time since the beginning of January.
There were 984 Covid-19 patients in hospital on Thursday morning, of which 167 were in an intensive care unit (ICU).
There were 35 ICU beds available for adults on Wednesday evening and five for children. St James's Hospital in Dublin had the highest number of Covid-19 patients last night (90), followed by the Mater Hospital (87).
HSE chief executive Paul Reid said that while the further reduced numbers are "better news again", there is "nothing normal about these levels and we have a long way to go yet. But at least it feels like we have the wind behind us now."
