Virus latest Covid-19 Ireland: Close to 20,000 new cases in past three days

There have been 19,489 new cases of Covid-19 across the last three days, the Department of Health has said.

There are still over 1,400 people in hospital with the virus, but the number has fallen by close to 200 in recent days. The figure rose slightly from Sunday’s 1,404 to 1,433 today. There are 59 people in intensive care with the virus, up two from yesterday.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre was today notified of 3,164 PCR-confirmed cases while 3,354 people registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal.

On Saturday, the HPSC was notified of 3,750 PCR-confirmed cases and 4,045 people registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal the previous day.

On Sunday, these figures were 2,313 PCRs and 2,863 antigen tests.

The number of cases has gradually fallen in the past week with Sunday’s combined total cases of 5,176 the lowest daily figure for weeks.

The number of new admissions to hospital with Covid-19 has also fallen, with Sunday’s total of 104 new admissions the lowest in four weeks.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly had voiced “cautious optimism” that the country was approaching the peak of the latest wave triggered by the highly transmissible BA.2 subvariant of Omicron, which is the most infectious variant to date to spread in Ireland.

Public health officials have estimated that BA.2 accounts for 95pc of new cases of coronavirus in Ireland and resulted in more than 1,600 people in hospital with the virus last week.

Hospital groups nationwide have had to curtail non-emergency elective care to prioritise treatment of people presenting at overflowing emergency departments across the country.

More than 11,000 people were on trolleys across the month of March in Irish hospitals as emergency departments struggled to cope with a wave of admissions of people sick with Covid and the infection prevention measures which put great strain on health workers.