The Chief Executive of the HSE has appealed to people to make personal judgements about what is possible, sensible and safe to do over the coming weeks.
Paul Reid said the health service was heading into the Christmas and New Year period in a much stronger position than it would have in the past due to the investment and supports in place to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, he said the HSE wanted to avoid a high number of cases with a high number of contacts all coming together at a time of the year where there is normally peak demand for health services.
"There is high demand in a normal year for non-Covid services, but our challenge this year is doubled. We will have to meet the demand, but also the demand of what we are seeing in the projected higher cases," he said.
Mr Reid said he wants to "avoid a dangerous confluence of risks".
He said everyone could look forward to 2021 with greater hope and optimism due to what has emerged with the vaccine.
"There is no doubt the emergence of the vaccine will be good for the health service, the economy and society and the public well-being," he said.
But he said there would be sustained period of time before society would get the level of benefit needed from the vaccination programme and public health measures would be absolutely key in the meantime.
Mr Reid said the high level task force on preparing for the roll-out of the vaccine has been meeting throughout the week to finalise an overall strategy.
He said the plan is due to be presented to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health tomorrow and expected to go to Cabinet next Tuesday.
HSE boss Paul Reid says it is important that people make personal judgments that are "sensible" over Christmas. However, he also said: "We can all look forward to 2021 with greater hope and optimism." pic.twitter.com/cc753SgY7M
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) December 10, 2020
Mr Reid said there has been "a slow but downward trend" in Covid-19 hospital cases over the last few days.
There were 203 people being treated for the virus as of this morning, of which 37 are in intensive care units.
Mr Reid said the projected high number of cases of the virus over the Christmas could be amplified by a high number of contacts for every one of those cases.
He said: "The personal judgments that we make in terms of how we live, how we visit and how we meet our friends and family over Christmas will be key in protecting the health service."
Mr Reid said a higher number of cases as people mingle more and a higher number of contacts would lead to an increased demand on hospitals.
He urged people to "really reduce and limit our contacts over the coming weeks".
"The key message is to keep all contacts to a consistent and low level to the best extent we possibly can throughout Christmas."
He also appealed to people to come forward immediately for testing if they have any systems of the virus.
Mr Reid confirmed that the HSE was reclassifying the partners of pregnant women as "essential companions" allowing them to attend foetal anomaly scans from next Monday.
He said visitations for partners and spouses to maternity services were significantly restricted due to Covid-19 to protect women, infants and staff.
The foetal anomaly scan usually takes place at 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Mr Reid said it was possible to allow partners to be present due to low levels of Covid-19 in the community and he said the situation would be closely monitored to ensure protection for everyone.
Mr Reid said over two million tests for Covid-19 had now been completed and 78,500 swabs had been taken in the last week.
He said there was a 3% increase in demand for testing in the community and there was an average of 3.5 contacts per person.
He said details for cover for testing and tracing over Christmas and the new year would be published shortly.
Mr Reid said the HSE was also communicating with GPs to provide enhanced out of hours cover during that period.
Lowest 14-day incidence rate in EU
The HSE's Chief Clinical Officer said Ireland had the lowest 14-day incidence rate of Covid 19 in the EU.
However, Dr Colm Henry added that the experience in other countries showed that success was fragile.
He said it was going to take some time before the vaccine protected people to the point where herd immunity was achieved and he warned that the virus would not take Christmas off.
Dr Henry said the five-day moving average seemed to have plateaued at around 286 cases per day.
He paid tribute to young people among whom the most dramatic decline in cases has been seen.
He said the they had gone from a rate of 432 cases per 100,000 people to 36 per 100,000.
Dr Henry said this was due to a collective effort to change millions of individual small behaviours, such as avoiding crowded areas and reducing contacts.
He warned people must adhere to public health measures while everyone waited for the vaccine to take effect.
Dr Henry said the vaccine development was an important stage, but it was just one more stage on a considerable journey.
No confirmed cases of flu so far
Chief Operations Officer Anne O'Connor said the HSE's community assessment hubs were currently not seeing a huge surge in cases and were seeing no real evidence of flu.
She said there had been an increase in the number of people taking up the flu vaccine compared to this time last year.
Asked about the low level of flu cases, Dr Henry said there had been no laboratory confirmed cases of flu so far.
This pattern had also been seen in the southern hemisphere and in other European countries.
He said there could be a variation in the level of influenza seen from year to year.
But he said it was also possible that it was due to the overlap between the group of people susceptible to becoming very sick from flu, and those in danger of being particularly affected by Covid-19.
He said the measures put in place by individuals and society to protect those groups was probably part of the reason why there was so little flu around.
Dr Henry said it was a "good story but it didn't happen without a considerable price".
Ms O'Connor said the hospital system had capacity, although some particular sites had a high level of activity.
Some of this was due to scheduled procedures that were taking place before Christmas.
She said there were 119 residents in the HSE's isolation facility in CityWest in Dublin, 49 of these were people who needed to self-isolate and 70 were healthcare workers who needed to quarantine.
Additional reporting Fergal O'Brien
