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HEALTHCARE STAFF ABSENCES due to Covid-19 are at their highest level since January as the incidence of the virus remains high.
5,106 healthcare staff were out of work last week due to being a positive case or a symptomatic close contact, the HSE confirmed this afternoon.
It represents a 34% increase in Covid-related absences among healthcare workers compared to two weeks earlier and is a 290% higher absence rate than the same week in 2020.
In January, absences peaked at 6,763 as Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations surged during the third wave before dropping to as low as 885 in March, hovering around 1,100 for several months, and then rising rapidly after August.
At a HSE briefing this afternoon, the health service’s chief executive Paul Reid said that the healthcare system is “under very significant pressure”.
The health official said that the current level of Covid-19 cases is putting pressure on all aspects of the system, including GPs and ICUs, and that community transmission is still too high.
He said that unvaccinated people are “disproportionately” represented in the number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals and ICUs.
Of those currently in hospital with Covid-19, 49% are fully vaccinated, 46% are not, and the status of 5% is unknown.
In ICUs, 47% are fully vaccinated, 52% are not vaccinated at all, and 1% are partially vaccinated.
In contrast, around 75% of the total population has been fully vaccinated.
“We are still in a very volatile position overall in terms of where the virus is at,” Reid said.
“We still remain extremely anxious from the healthcare system and the pressure that it’s putting on everybody concerned.”
HSE Chief Operating Officer Colm Henry said that the majority of cases are in people under the age of 35, which he pointed to as evidence of booster vaccines working in the older population.
85% of over-80s and 84% of over-60s in long-term residential have now received a booster dose, alongside 74% of people who are immunocompromised.
Among healthcare workers, 51% have received an additional dose, as well as 60% of 70-79s and 10% of 60-69s.
Céimin Burke / Twitter
Céimin Burke / Twitter / Twitter
“The key messages today is that our healthcare system remains stretched due to the number of cases of Covid-19 and our ability associated with other seasonal viruses and of course our usual activity that we want to continue delivering,” Henry said.
“The provision of intensive care is under considerable pressure,” he said.
Unvaccinated people are “disproportionately represented in terms of the severe end of illness and hospitalisation”.
“What is really, really important in the first case is to stop cases happening in the first place.”
With reporting by Céimin Burke
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Why are half of the articles comments closed? Why is the presidential oath one closed?? How do the TDs and senetors not think, “first world problems”
@Martin Redington: Comments are closed when a court case is still going on. You have been here for 7 years, you should know this by now.
@Pete Gilmartin: articles on travellers are also always closed.. what do they say, “if you want to know who controls you look at who you’re not allowed to criticise”?
@Martin Redington: Labour, SF and SDs with nothing better to be doing than grandstanding their atheism and objection to the words God and Almighty. As if there aren’t enough real problems to contend with for these so called socialists.
@Martin Redington: Maybe they’re afraid that people who might want to vent about a different issue entirely will post something in the comments section of an article that has absolutely nothing to do with that particular article. I’ve seen it happen before and quite recently too. It’s amazing how often it happens.
@GrumpyAulFella: They’re not all atheists and not all people are Christian or monotheist either. Exclusion from office on the basis of religious discrimination is a problem but not as urgent as other but luckily we have the ability to fix more than one problem at a time….
@Diarmuid Hunt: who’s excluding anyone from the office?
@Pete Gilmartin: and what about comments closed on the Chinese tennis player
@Roy Dowling: To get into the office you must swear an oath to ‘Almighty God’. Now one can do that against their beliefs but it is exclusionary by nature and not in line with freedom of religion. If people of faith think that faith is important then they shouldn’t be forcing people to take a frivolous oath to their god.
@Diarmuid Hunt: who is excluded from office? Our president is a self-confessed atheist. How much money, time and effort have these offended politicians wasted on this nonsense when as a nation we’re battling a global health emergency and homelessness crisis?
@GrumpyAulFella: It wouldn’t be wasted if it was already done. Also could you show me how Michael D is an atheist, can’t find an article on it
@Diarmuid Hunt: it didn’t seem to bother our President who is a self confessed a!heist. Should we scrap the constitution also and rewrite the declaration of the Irish Republic? Politicians living off the taxpayer with nothing better to be doing as we battle through a global health emergency and homelessness crisis. The stench of faux outrage is palpable.
@Diarmuid Hunt: So there faith in there own religious beliefs that is prevent them taking office. I’m no fan of religion and I’d have no problem saying a frivolous oath to any god. Let’s be honest it wouldn’t be the first time a politician lied would it?
@Martin Redington: God is NOT religion. Its noteworthy that people who have a problem with God want the State to be god or a human dynasty like the Windsors to be gods.
@Tom Molloy: How is it noteworthy when it’s evidently untrue? God is not a religion obviously but belief in any god should not be a prerequisite to hold office.
@Roy Dowling: I wouldn’t have a problem either but thats only because I don’t beleive in theism but if someone strongly believes some other religion and opposes to swearing an oath to God Almighty based on their beliefs it is exclusionary. The place for God, god or gods is in religious building and people’s homes if they so wish not in government. Our government is not theocratic but governments that are tend to be some of the worst places to live.
@John Duggan: you think travellers control the media? That’s actually hilarious, well done
With respect to Evelyn, all I want to know is will I get a snow day this year or not?
Met Eireann don’t issue detailed forecasts for beyond 5 days, but for what it’s worth virtually all the extended models are showing pretty much the same thing regarding next week. Turning colder over the weekend,, slightly milder days/cold, frosty nights midweek but then possibly the start of a more severe spell of cold the following weekend. That’s subject to change which is why Met Eireann won’t mention it until closer to the time, but it’s a little unusual for all models to agree on something that’s 10 or 11 days away.
@Tommy Roche: well said lol you must follow irish weather online he was saying that scenario
Interesting to see modules show this Greenland high so early could be an interesting winter
Blatant fake news: “Temperatures in the country today are expected to be mild with highs of between 12-16 degrees Celsius, the long-term averages for November in different parts of Ireland range between 7-9 degrees Celsius.”
That 7-9c range includes night-time minimums, so you are not comparing like-with-like.
Dose Evelyn believe in global warming or does she think its a load of b o l l i x
@Alan Kelly: Without the Greenhouse Effect the Earth would be covered with ice sheets all the way to the equator. Experimental proof of the Greenhouse Effect was discovered in 1896:
Arrhenius, S., 1896. XXXI. On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground. The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, 41(251), pp.237-276.
The Greenhouse Effect is a fact.
The question is, do human’s increase the Greenhouse effect (cause global warming) by adding billions of tons of Greenhouse gasses, that trap heat, to the atmosphere e.g. CO2, Methane, Nitrogen Oxides (CO2 is what Arrhenius called carbonic acid in his 1896 paper).
Why wouldn’t they?
A 19th century scientist figured out CO2 traps the Sun’s heat, adding more would make the Earth warmer, it’s not complicated. They figured this out >100 years ago.
See “A 1912 news article ominously forecasted the catastrophic effects of fossil fuels on climate change”.
So, yes she does believe in anthropogenic global warming / climate change, as do 97% of science papers published:
Cook, J., et. al, 2016. Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters, 11(4), p.048002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002
NASA has a nice website that explains how we know we are warming the planet.
@David Jordan: Land use probably has a greater effect on warming over C02 and there is also a natural warming/natural cooling cycle in the climate. So alot of moving parts, which I don’t have much confidence in statements like we are creating a climate “crisis”.
Human’s no doubt are contributing to change, but it’s arguable what proportion of overall change that is human induced. Also, it is unknown what these changes will translate into.
@LaoisWeather: 9 billion of us now, driving, flying, farming, burning, consuming, mining, destroying rainforests that stood for thousands of years… I think it’s safe to say we are responsible for what’s happening, although not solely responsible.
@LaoisWeather: It’s easy express scepticism, ah This or That could be true. But you have not said why these alternatives might be more likely, you just raised them.
Are they more likely? Let’s look closer:
“Land use probably has a greater effect on warming over C02″
Maybe it’s s not humans it’s humans? Anyway it is not true.
Yes, deforestation, expansion in farming, desertification and urban sprawl (urban heat island effect) contributes to local climate change, but the planet is 71% Ocean and oceans are warming nearly as fast as land.
Also, 93% heat added to the Earth, from global warming, is collected by the oceans. Water holds vastly more heat than air.
“More than 90 percent of the warming that has happened on Earth over the past 50 years has occurred in the oceans. Recent studies estimate that warming of the upper oceans accounts for about 63 percent of the total increase in the amount of stored heat in the climate system from 1971 to 2010, and warming from 700 meters down to the ocean floor adds about another 30 percent.”
So no, most of the warming is not due to land-use change, though it certainly plays a part, locally.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-ocean-heat-content
“And there is also a natural warming/natural cooling cycle in the climate.”
Yes, there are local or regional climate cycles, driven by periodic changes in ocean currents, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or the North Atlantic Oscillation (which strongly influences our summers).
Changes in ocean currents help can cool the planet, by sending more warm water towards the Poles where is radiates heat and helps cool the planet, slowing global warming. Indeed, wind driven changes in ocean current in the Pacific helps slow cooling between 1998-2013 e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_hiatus#/media/File:Global_warming_hiatus.gif
Alternatively, changes in ocean current can exacerbate the effects of greenhouse gasses, by not moving as much warm water to the poles, and not cooling the planet.
England, et al., 2014. Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus. Nature climate change, 4(3), pp.222-227.
The warming hiatus ended in 2013.
So ocean currents tend speed up or slow down warming, or redistribute heat, but they do not add heat energy to the system overall. They cannot cause warming over the long-term, globally. The system eventually reaches an equilibrium.
Other common sceptic questions:
The Sun?
No, the Sun got very slightly dimmer over the last few decades due to a decrease in Sunspot activity since the 1950s.
Dust, Soot?
Dust and sooty air pollution helped cool the planet. But cleaner air, since the 1970s, cleared the sky and helped warmed some regions.
We’re coming out of an Ice Age!
We’re in an Ice Age, we’re in the interglacial period of the Holocene ice age. Also, over the last 8,000 years there’s been a very gradual warming trend and then a sudden warming in the last 150 years, far too fast to be natural.
See: Revised Holocene temperature record affirms role of greenhouse gases in recent millennia
@David Jordan: Correction, I was looking at the wrong line (CO2) on a graph in the last link (Revised Holocene temperature record affirms role of greenhouse gases in recent millennia).
There was a slow cooling trend in the last 8,000 years, that let to the Little Ice Age (1300 – 1850). This was followed by a very rapid warming in the last 150 years.
This makes sense as it agrees with the current Milankovitch cycle which says we should be cooling and heading to a new period of glaciation in several thousand years.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2948/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/
at least she’s not giving driving advice like the article I saw yesterday
It is hellishly warm regardless of your religious beliefs.
have your say