Another 4,570 new cases of Covid have been reported with 622 people now in hospital.
The number of people admitted to hospital with the virus jumped 40 since yesterday with 117 of these patients being treated in intensive care.
The country’s hospital system is reaching full capacity and is now under widespread pressure in all parts of the country, due to the ongoing rise in Covid-19 admissions, according to the HSE’s Chief Operations Officer Anne O’Connor.
Speaking on RTÉ’s News At One, Ms O’Connor said there is “a worrying and significant impact” of Covid-19 in hospitals, with just 94 beds available in hospitals across the country.
She said that it is now “inevitable” that more scheduled care will be cancelled as there is a finite capacity for beds.
“We are reaching a point where it is becoming difficult. In reality there is only so much we can do as a health service,” she said, adding that the picture is “one of people who are very sick and needing a lot of care” with a knock-on impact on the ability to respond to non-Covid patients.
“We are at a stage where our hospitals are pretty much full,’ Anne O’Connor said
There have been cancellations in a large number of hospitals, and this morning there were just five beds available in 25 sites.
Ms O’Connor said there has been a 25% rise in admissions in the last week, and ICU admissions are up 41%, adding that the people coming into hospital with Covid-19 are much sicker, and of the 117 patients with the virus in hospitals, 81 of these require ventilation.
She said there has been a 32% increase in numbers of people coming to emergency departments in the last week and 23% end up being admitted, which is a high rate.
