The pressure on hospitals in the current Covid-19 wave has intensified, with a pandemic record for daily admissions set on Friday.
With the number of patients with the disease expected to rise further next week, health sources expect widespread cancellations of non-urgent care.
The number of people in hospital with the disease increased to 1,466 on Friday, the highest figure since January 2021. There were 235 admissions over the previous 24 hours. There were 55 Covid-19 patients in intensive care (ICU), up two on the previous day.
Three hospitals – the Mater and Beaumont in Dublin and Cork University Hospital – had 100 Covid-19 patients on Thursday, according to the HSE. There were 78 vacant beds across the system and 11 hospitals had no beds free.
The HSE said there were four children in intensive care on Thursday, down one on the previous day.
Widespread deferrals of non-urgent care in the UL Hospitals group were to continue into next week due to the continuing surge in people attending emergency departments in the mid-west, the group said. Almost all scheduled care at Ennis, Nenagh, Croom and St John's Hospital Limerick is to be deferred, a meeting of the hospital crisis management team decided on Friday. This includes all patients planning to attend for outpatient appointments, day surgery and endoscopy.
The announcement follows an earlier decision to stop almost all elective activity at University Hospital Limerick, which has been badly hit by high emergency department demand, increased Covid-19 infections and high numbers of staff off sick.
Services at University Maternity Hospital Limerick are unaffected by the cancellations and women are advised to attend their appointments.
A further 9,324 PCR-confirmed cases of Covid-19 were notified on Friday, the highest daily figure since mid-January. In addition, 10,542 people registered a positive antigen test with the HSE.
Pregnant women
The number of pregnant women with Covid-19 requiring admission to intensive care has fallen dramatically in the current wave of the pandemic. The reduction reflects the milder impact of the Omicron variant in comparison with previous strains, and higher vaccination and booster levels among pregnant women.
There were two confirmed cases of Covid-19 reported among pregnant women in ICU since the current wave started last December 19th, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC).
This compares with 39 pregnant women with Covid-19 being admitted to ICU in the fourth wave between last June and December, when the Delta variant was dominant.
Of the 205 people with Covid-19 admitted to ICU in the current wave, 74 died, 90 were discharged alive and the remainder were in hospital at the time the report was compiled, according to the HPSC.
The youngest patient was 15 and the oldest was 97. Some 82 per cent had an underlying condition. The median length of stay for those who were discharged was six days though one patient remained in ICU for 61 days.
More than 90 per cent of new Covid-19 cases are the BA.2 subvariant, a separate HPSC report on variants states. The proportion of PCR tests that are positive for the S gene target – which is used to measure the prevalence of BA.2 cases – rose from 10 per cent at the end of January to more than 90 per cent in early March.
BA.2 and most Delta variants produce an S gene target positive result, while Omicron (BA.1) does not. As Delta is no longer circulating in Ireland, this screen is indicative of the number of cases infected with BA.2.
Since December 13th, 777 BA.2 cases have been identified through the more elaborate process of genomic sequencing. Over this period, 8,231 BA.1 cases were sequenced, along with 2,615 BA1.1 cases and four BA.3 cases.
Since the end of last year, 4.5 per cent of cases have been genomically sequenced.
