Irish COVID-19 surge driven by socializing, not new variant: officials – Canada.com

Irish COVID-19 surge driven by socializing, not new variant: officials – Canada.com

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“We saw an even more intense level of socialization and viral transmission over Christmas than we might have expected and that’s what’s leading us to the really precarious position we’re in now.”

Nolan said cases could peak anywhere between 3,000 to 6,000 a day and Ireland was set to report more than 3,000 cases on Saturday, a near doubling of its daily record.

That will partly be due to a backlog of positive tests, but Nolan said the surge suggests the number of people infected by someone with COVID-19 – the so-called reproduction number – may have risen as high as 1.8 or 2.0.

The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 rose to 581 on Saturday from 508 a day earlier, and has more than doubled in a week.

Infections are also spreading rapidly across the open border in the British-run region of Northern Ireland. Cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days have risen to 577 after the health authority reported another 3,576 cases over the past 48 hours.

Published at Sat, 02 Jan 2021 16:11:01 +0000