Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
THE DEPARTMENT OF Health is to begin the process of building extra surge capacity in intensive care units as modelling suggests that some 200 Covid-19 patients could be in ICU in a few months’ time, the Health Minister has said.
Stephen Donnelly was speaking in the Seanad ahead of the passing of legislation that will reopen indoor hospitality for the first time this year but for fully vaccinated or Covid-recovered persons only.
The government is planning to have the legislation signed into law next week, with the rules in place for 26 July.
Ahead of today’s vote, which passed with 29 votes to seven, Donnelly said new modelling from the national public health emergency team (Nphet) shows that over 200 people would be in ICU in just a few months time.
The Minister told the Seanad that “we don’t know how bad it’s going to get” but this modelling is the “second-best scenario”. The government is looking at a lot of different models at the moment, in terms of the possible impact of the Delta variant.
“We know that the numbers in hospitals have doubled in the last three weeks, and because of exponential growth, they will continue to double,” said Donnelly.
“We’re going to have to start building up additional surge capacity for ICU now, in case it happens.”
Advertisement
He added that the range given for fatalities for three months is between 335 and 1,760.
“Now, in the War of Independence about 2,300 people died, put it in context of what the deaths of 1,760 people would mean. So we’ve got to do everything we can to push that down and down and down.”
Rapid increase
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan warned those who are not fully vaccinated to “take every precaution this weekend”, as the country reported 1,179 Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours.
Donnelly told the Seanad earlier today that the infection rate among the 16 to 18 year old cohort is now the same infection rates as at the peak in the October wave and “the line is vertical on the page”. He added that the line is also vertical for the 19 to 24 age group.
“We’re looking at really quick infection rates for these groups and thank God most of them will be fine because of their age, but they won’t all be fine, and many of them will get long Covid – and we’re really only beginning to understand it.
Professor Philip Nolan, chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said this evening that there is a “very rapid” increase in incidence in those aged 16 to 34-year-olds.
“The rise in those aged 16-18 years is exceptional. Please do everything you can to stay safe, and to encourage and support those around you to stay safe too,” Nolan tweeted this evening.
We are seeing very rapid increases in incidence in 16-18, 19-24 and 25-34 year olds. The rise in those aged 16-18 years is exceptional. Please do everything you can to stay safe, and to encourage and support those around you to stay safe too. pic.twitter.com/drofQphJVn
— Professor Philip Nolan (@President_MU) July 16, 2021
Related Reads
Taoiseach says Ireland's reopening has been 'slowest in Europe, wisely so'
Online vaccine booking portal is now open for those aged 25 to 29
The Explainer: What could your holidays look like for the rest of the year?
Amid the rising cases of Covid-19, Taoiseach Micheál Martin told reporters that Ireland has been the slowest in Europe to reopen society and that this has been a “wise” approach.
“The Delta variant is here, there will be an increase in case numbers, we’re watching very carefully the impact on hospitalisations and on ICUs,” Martin said.
The online booking system for Covid-19 vaccines has today opened for the 25-29 age cohort.
Those registering through the portal will receive a Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccine.
People aged 18-34 are also currently able to register with a pharmacy to receive the one-dose Janssen vaccine, subject to supply.
The HSE is also planning to roll out an opt-in system to allow those aged 18-34 to register on its vaccine portal to receive an AstraZeneca or Janssen vaccine in a vaccination centre.
Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article.
Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
77 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
@Paul Furey: Mabye so but what benefits has it brought, little to none, they stated that vaccination was key to opening up society but all they have done is bullshited us and will try to do so
@James Cronin: Nope. They were very clear. 80% was needed and we haven’t got there yet. They also consistently warned about the dangers posed by variants. The only people who didn’t hear this are those who didn’t want to.
@Leitrim303: The infections are among the young who are mostly unvaccinated, not older people who are almost all vaccinated. It shows vaccines are working
@Leitrim303: vaccines do work, they all offer over 90% efficacy in preventing hospitalisations and serious illness from Covid, incl the Delta variant. Think of them being like safety belts, they give huge protection, but don’t make you immortal. Of the 124 admitted to ICU since April, 123 were not vaccinated.
@Andy Dunn: how many of those cases had to be hospitalised? How many of those cases are now in ICU? Try thinking and getting some facts before you start talking rubbish. No one said you couldn’t catch the virus post vaccination but your much less likely to be seriously ill or hospitalised.
@Karl Burke: thanks for sharing. It seems like 99% of people in Gibraltar are vaccinated (good for them) so it makes sense that any cases would be in those vaccinated. We already know there is a small risk of vaccinated people getting covid, but symptoms should be mild. How many people are currently in hospital or ICU with covid right now?
@Craig Mahon: the elderly and more vulnerable have a higher percentage rate of being made seriously ill by Covid. Younger people have a smaller percentage rate of being made seriously ill. Younger people are not immune to it and are at risk. It’s far better to prepare now then have to react.
@Craig Mahon: Younger unvaccinted patients, same effect was seen in other countries that vaccinated elderly first. This due to older vaccinated not falling ill.
@Craig Mahon: everyone is potentially vulnerable to get sick, those who are old and have underlying conditions were more vulnerable to death, the 60-70 year olds are just nearly completed 2 doses, but will still need 15 days for the 2nd dose to give it’s best protection
@Craig Mahon:
Covid combined with a particularly bad flu season and our hospitals may not be able to cope I’d imagine.
God forbid we had something like a bad train/aeroplane crash on top of that and we would be screwed altogether.
Even if the icu spaces are unused, we may still need them.
@David Jordan: what percentage of this younger cohort requited icu attention the last wave (I say the last wave as its probably the closest we have to knowing how many of this demographic caught covid at any one period due to the level of testing carried out)? If we know this it shouldn’t be difficult to extrapolate out what the potential icu capacity might be going forward. If we do know this why is information like this not being made publicly available?
The under 30s are the least group of people at risk. Think the chances are like 1 in 500k. Pure nonsense and opinion backed up with no facts or evidence. All we need to do is look up the data on the CSO.
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: your 1 in 500 k seemed very low to me. In fact it would mean maybe 3/4 young people might die if there about 2 million of them. Maybe there’s less of them. Anyway after a quick search it appears that for young people from 18 -35 the IFR appears to be about ,01%. Still a small number but it’s now one in 10,000. There are a lot of young people out there. If the virus spreads wildly in the younger population this will lead to more heartache and loss. Btw I’m not saying a lockdown is the answer. But you are spreading lies about the severity of the disease. We need to do as much as we can reasonably do to suppress the virus until anyone who wants a vaccine gets it.
@Richard Williamson: how come all of a sudden the young people are getting COVID? They weren’t an issue before. Very little of them getting sick until now. It’s was all 40 year olds and up. Mainly elderly. Must be the new variant for young people that don’t get sick from the last variant variant.
@pabloeskabab: probably because the restrictions and lockdown have relaxed. Again I’m not saying we should lockdown again. However clearly the older cohorts/ people have protection therefore a smaller % of them are contracting Covid. Add to that more socialising as restrictions relax and with the more transmissible delta variant case numbers will rise exponentially. Give it a month and these large case numbers with exponential growth will lead to more mortality and hospitalisations and Nphet modelling predictions are quickly looking plausible.
@Paul Cunningham: Just look up the CSO data on Covid, I did mention it in the post above, its the govts own data. Its not from Facebook or any social media site. Why are the govt saying the opposite of what the data is showing? We all know the people from 70 up need to be very careful. They also have it that 90% of covid fatalities had an underlying condition.
Most if not a large majority of young people in this category are well on the way to being fully vaccinated. I know someone with an underlying condition fully vaccinated and they are 21. That leaves the young people under 30 with no underlying conditions left to be vaccinated. These are they one group of people we’ve being told all along by all the major world organisations that they are not at risk from Covid.
We don’t know how bad its going to get. We have an idea. It’s already curling over in UK despite increased socialising in UK and everything being open. Proves lockdown and restrictions have no impact! Martin saying we have had the slowest reopening and this is wise is utterly false!
@Toon Army: lockdowns have no impact? Back to bed with you lad. There is no lockdown here. The danger is we go back into lockdown. If lockdowns don’t work how come our fatality rate is so low?
@GrumpyAulFella: how do you know what the fatality rate is…thought we had no figures on that since the Cyber Attack in the HSE nearly 2 months ago now.
@GrumpyAulFella: There has been no correlation between severity of lockdowns and fatality rates. This is well proven at this rate. The reason for our ongoing prolonged lockdown approach is due to nothing but sheer ineptitude and unwillingness to respond to international science.
How badly designed is our health system that the policy is to scare the crap out of people weekly in order to keep an extremely low amount or people give our population out of hospital beds, this constant stepping on people’s throats is damaging mental health to a far greater degree than the current Covid situation, hospitals will be full of people who can’t make sense of life anymore if they don’t cut it out
@kevin mc cormack: Great point. The CMO comment that parents shouldn’t bring their children to restaurants when they reopen was the turning point for many. That along with the snake oil comment show the type of people we’re dealing with. Dispand NPHET now.
@Toon Army: why? It was always nphets advice to not have unvaccinated people indoors in pubs and restaurants. The government bowed to public and industry pressure to allow children. The health advice can be and often is different to the government decisions
@Elaine Phelan: nphet advice! Not the rear if Europe and since covid doesn’t really effect kids and they are going to be in a room full of vaccinated people with possibly a few other unvaccinated kids then why would it be an issue? Why antigen testing isn’t being used in all work places at this stage I can’t fathom, catching 70% of cases is better than none.
Modelling Indicates that over 200 people will be in ICU!
“We’re going to have to start building up additional surge capacity for ICU now, in case it happens.”
@Nicholas Byrne: Kinda makes you wonder what they thought the point of all those lockdowns was. Flatten the curve, my @rse. Was saying it 6-8 months ago: the time for bolstering the HSE was was back then. Only now, with Delta on the horizon are they bothering to “start building up”.
This guy is a top class spoofer. First he’s on about a trampoline being dangerous and now he’s comparing what might happen,to the war of independence where the IRB were armed with weapons supplied by Dennis The Menace and Gnasher against the British Army and he somehow reckons that these potential figures are equatable. It’s frankly laughable if you ask me.
First they blamed the elderly then they blamed the middle aged now blaming the young next it’ll be new born babies never blame themselves for making a complete hash of covid government is a disgrace
Pope Francis had 'peaceful' night in hospital, Vatican says
Updated
3 hrs ago
14.3k
Tough Times
Ireland A second best on miserable day against England
6 mins ago
137
1
The Morning Lead
People living in illegal cabins - including family forced to dismantle home - tell their stories
16 hrs ago
39.8k
81
Your Cookies. Your Choice.
Cookies help provide our news service while also enabling the advertising needed to fund this work.
We categorise cookies as Necessary, Performance (used to analyse the site performance) and Targeting (used to target advertising which helps us keep this service free).
We and our 152 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device. Selecting Accept All enables tracking technologies to support the purposes shown under we and our partners process data to provide. If trackers are disabled, some content and ads you see may not be as relevant to you. You can resurface this menu to change your choices or withdraw consent at any time by clicking the Cookie Preferences link on the bottom of the webpage .Your choices will have effect within our Website. For more details, refer to our Privacy Policy.
We and our vendors process data for the following purposes:
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
Cookies Preference Centre
We process your data to deliver content or advertisements and measure the delivery of such content or advertisements to extract insights about our website. We share this information with our partners on the basis of consent. You may exercise your right to consent, based on a specific purpose below or at a partner level in the link under each purpose. Some vendors may process your data based on their legitimate interests, which does not require your consent. You cannot object to tracking technologies placed to ensure security, prevent fraud, fix errors, or deliver and present advertising and content, and precise geolocation data and active scanning of device characteristics for identification may be used to support this purpose. This exception does not apply to targeted advertising. These choices will be signaled to our vendors participating in the Transparency and Consent Framework.
Manage Consent Preferences
Necessary Cookies
Always Active
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
Targeting Cookies
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Functional Cookies
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
Performance Cookies
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Store and/or access information on a device 104 partners can use this purpose
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development 136 partners can use this purpose
Use limited data to select advertising 106 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Create profiles for personalised advertising 78 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Use profiles to select personalised advertising 77 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Create profiles to personalise content 37 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Use profiles to select personalised content 33 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Measure advertising performance 127 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Measure content performance 60 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 75 partners can use this purpose
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Develop and improve services 82 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Use limited data to select content 38 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
Use precise geolocation data 43 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Actively scan device characteristics for identification 25 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Ensure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix errors 86 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Deliver and present advertising and content 96 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Match and combine data from other data sources 68 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Link different devices 50 partners can use this feature
Always Active
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Identify devices based on information transmitted automatically 84 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
Save and communicate privacy choices 64 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say