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Over 3 million people fully vaccinated as campaign enters 'final leg' - HSE

Updated / Thursday, 12 Aug 2021 15:30
Paul Reid said that by this weekend 90% of adults will be at least partially vaccinated
Paul Reid said that by this weekend 90% of adults will be at least partially vaccinated

The Chief Executive of the HSE has said the vaccination campaign is in its "final leg".

Speaking at the weekly HSE briefing at Dr Steevens' Hospital, Paul Reid said more than three million people have been fully vaccinated in Ireland and by this weekend 90% of adults will be at least partially vaccinated and 80% will be fully vaccinated.

Paul Reid said children aged 12-15 can register online for vaccinations from today. He said many will have already received appointments for this weekend.

"Very encouragingly, by mid-morning this morning, over 42,000 children aged 12-15 have been registered on the online system," he said.

He said this is likely to be the last age group of the vaccination campaign.

Paul Reid urged people to stick with the public health measures as there was a 'sustained threat' from the Delta variant.

Number of Covid patients in hospital continues to rise

Paul Reid, said that of 151 Covid patients who were discharged between 31 July and 10 August, the average length of stay was six and a half days. He said the average patient age was 41.

The average length of stay in ICU was 18 days, he said.

Of the 206 Covid patients in hospital this week, Paul Reid said 51% were not vaccinated. Of those in ICU, he said 58% were not vaccinated, 18% were partially vaccinated, and 24% were fully vaccinated.

Mr Reid said the number of people with Covid-19 in hospitals continues to rise and this is projected to continue throughout August and into September.

He said there are 219 people in hospital with Covid-19 which is a 15% increase on the same day last week.
He said there are 36 people in ICU, a 20% rise on the same day last week.

Mr Reid said the proportion of hospital admissions for Covid-19 of people who are fully vaccinated will "inevitably rise" as more of the population becomes vaccinated.

He said where hospitals outbreaks are occurring, a much higher proportion are fully vaccinated and asymptomatic.

He said a high percentage of people admitted to ICU (around 76%-80%) are not fully vaccinated. He said 60% of hospitalised cases this week were over the age of 50, 33% were between 19-49 and 7% were between 0-18.

Over the same period, 58% of ICU cases were over 50 while 48% were between 19-49. There were no cases between 0-18.

Paul Reid, said there were 155 laboratory confirmed Covid-19 deaths notified to the HPSC between 1 April and 7 August. He said they have vaccination data for 150 of those - 62 deaths were reported in people who received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.

He said seven deaths were reported in people who were fully vaccinated.

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Niamh O'Beirne, the HSE’s National Lead for Testing and Tracing, said the contacts portal was launched during the week, which helps them reach people more quickly.

She said yesterday was the first time they sent texts out to let people know they are Covid positive, and about 10% clicked the link. That number stands at about 30% this morning, she said.

She said 45% of close contacts are fully vaccinated, and 11% have received 2 doses but are not yet considered fully vaccinated.

She said close contact positivity this week has risen to 16.4% and the household is back to being both the most common type of close contact at 45% and the highest level of positivity at 21%.

Niamh O'Beirne said 6.2 million tests have been conducted over the last 16 months and more than 1.5 million contact tracing calls have been made.

She said there is strong demand for contact tracing and testing, and it has increased by 12% over the last seven days. She said this is still within capacity.

Ms O'Beirne said people aged between 15-24 have the highest positivity level at 22%.

She said there are just under 1,000 people working in contact tracing centres.

Return to normality in hospitals ' won't happen for some time'

Liam Woods, the HSE's Director of Acute Hospitals, said attendance at emergency departments has been higher in recent weeks but just this week has come down "a small bit".

He said admissions have been running on par with 2019 levels. However, Mr Woods said attendances have actually been up when looked at over an eight-week period, particularly amongst those over 75.

Mr Woods said there has been particular pressures in Cork, Galway Mayo, Sligo, Naas and Tallaght hospitals.

He said that in terms of returning to normality in hospitals post-Covid, that is "not happening now and won't happen for some time".

He said the experience of working and being in a hospital is "very different" now to what it was in 2019.

Liam Woods, HSE Director of Acute Hospitals

Mr Woods said the impact of flu this winter is "hard to predict".

He said infection prevention control measures, such as hand washing and mask wearing, will contribute to lower rates of infection, but they are "very dependent" on the type of flu that emerges.

On the issue of access to maternity services, Liam Woods said most hospitals are reporting as "compliant" but there are some exceptions.

Mr Woods said 14 of the 19 hospitals will be fully compliant by this weekend.

He said there are some sites which are making physical changes, while others, including the Rotunda, are limited in such a way that it is very difficult to comply.

"The main criteria that is causing difficulty where we have issues is the physical infrastructure," he said.

Liam Woods said the latest reports showed four Covid outbreaks in nursing home environments, a low number of cases and no hospitalisations.

He said there are 11 outbreaks in the hospital environment but most of these involve two or three cases.

He said three sites account for more than 70% of patients and staff impacted. Mr Woods said there is no intention to review visiting policy around outbreaks.

Covid risks for people under 19 years of age 'are low'

The Director of the National Immunisation Office has said the overall risks of Covid-19 for people under the age of 19 without underlying conditions "are low".

Dr Lucy Jessop said the rate of hospitalisations of such people is less than 1 in 100,000 in Ireland. She said of children that were hospitalised, 7 in 10 had chronic health conditions.

She said the risks after the disease, like multi-system inflammatory syndrome or long-Covid, are rare in children.

Dr Jessop said there are "psycho-social" impacts for children in relation to education and social interactions.

95% of all HSE servers and devices restored

Earlier, it was confirmed that over 95% of all HSE servers and devices have been restored following the cyber attack in May.

Three months on from the attack, the HSE said acute services are almost fully restored.

The HSE said many of their priority systems are back online on local sites, including radiology and diagnostic systems, maternity and infant care, patient administration systems, chemotherapy, radiation oncology, radiotherapy and laboratories.

Restoration of HSE staff email is also taking place on a phased, controlled basis, with the majority of staff having access to email. Work remains ongoing in certain areas on enabling access and accessing historical mails.

The HSE reiterated that it did not engage with hackers, and in line with state policy, a ransom was not paid.

A spokesperson also said that the decryption tool continues to be deployed on individual systems based on clinical priority and that this is a slow and methodical process.

Additional reporting: Kate Egan

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