The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 4,607 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

As of 8am today, 579 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of whom 115 are in ICU.

Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said:

Our high incidence of disease from COVID-19 continues to have a significant impact on our health service. We are still seeing a concerning number of people who are in hospital and require critical care for COVID-19. This wave of infection is driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19.

We know that the news of the Omicron variant is causing some concern. However, we also know how to break the chains of transmission of COVID-19 – these measures have worked against previous variants of COVID-19, they can successfully supress transmission of the Delta variant and we are optimistic that they will work against the Omicron variant.

If you are socialising, think about the risk associated with the activities you have planned. Remember the simple steps you can take to keep both you and the people you meet with safe:

• Wear a mask correctly
• Meet outside if possible
• Avoid poorly ventilated indoor spaces
• Practise good hand and respiratory hygiene

Be mindful of your contacts in the days after socialising, and especially consider anyone you meet who may be immunocompromised or vulnerable to COVID-19.

It is vital that if you experience and symptoms of COVID-19 that you isolate immediately and arrange a PCR test – not an antigen test.

Vaccination remains one of the best ways to protect ourselves from severe illness and death from COVID-19. We know that last week, more than 10,000 people came forward to receive a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, this is great news, and we would encourage anyone yet to receive a first dose to come forward for vaccination as soon as possible.

We are now offering a third booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine to all those aged 16-years and older. Please prioritise your booster vaccine appointment as soon as you are called for it. We have seen encouraging signs in the decreasing levels of infection among those age groups that have received their booster dose and so, the importance of coming forward cannot be overstated.

I would also like to note that the seasonal flu (influenza) vaccine is still available to adults and children and I encourage people of all ages to avail of it. The flu vaccine will help protect you against flu and reduce the spread of flu to others such as siblings, parents and grandparents. Children and young people aged 2 to 17 can get the nasal flu vaccine for free.

Notes:

Day to day variation in the reported number of cases of COVID-19 does not impact on key trend analysis. Analysing over a longer time period such as a week or 14 days, smooths out any variations introduced by processing times, and provides a more stable picture of the trend.

The number of notifications on CIDR will differ from other HSE data sources, such as positive SARS-CoV-2 results uploaded to the COVID Care Tracker, for several reasons including:

• Deduplication of repeat positive tests in the same person

• Differing upload schedules by the laboratories to CCT and CIDR – uploading of positive records on CIDR by laboratories is a more manual process than uploading to CCT. Uploading to CIDR typically occurs on the day or within one day of authorisation of the laboratory test result

• The time required for the two-step method of processing notifications on CIDR – this typically occurs either on the day or within one day of laboratories uploading positive records on CIDR

Statistics on booster vaccinations are now available on the COVID-19 data hub.

#LayerUp to protect against COVID-19 infection. A range of posters and signs are available for you to use.

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