Thread by @andrewflood

Not happy to be doing this but the #Covid19Ireland hospital stats over last few days are not great - the 808 in hospital today are 132% last Monday so the obvious rise in the graph is not just the usual weekend increase /1

The number of new hospital cases each week has also risen almost as rapidly, 749 new hospital cases this week are 124% of the previous week /2

ICU is less definitive but it lags hospital cases by a few days and we *might* be seeing the start of a rise with the 21 new ICU cases this week at 110% previous /3

Probably too early for this to be driven by removal of requirement to wear masks although the announcement may have led to 'anticipatory behaviour' ahead of the actual date. Other possibilities are rising proportion of older people being infected as they start to take risks /4

Or waning effectiveness of booster doses against infection & as a carry over from that against severe consequences (if you aren't infected then you won't become a hospital case). Probably all of the above contribute /5

Could it simply be 'incidental' Covid - people going to hospital for other reasons & happening to be positive. No way of knowing from available public data but mask requirement removal could cause a fasxt rise in 'incidental' infections /6

Something to at the very least watch over the next days - its likely that we will see waves for some time to come although this does feel very soon & with hospital rates still at a high level so there can't be much capacity /7

Northern Ireland doesn't provide much data over the weekend but up to Friday the proportion of those over 80 infected had more than doubled to 2.7% cases & hospital cases rose the previous week but then appeared to stabilise (484 on Friday). Update at 14.00 may be informative /8

Todays figures for the north are out
Hospital admissions this week 135% previous
In hospital 103% last Monday
ICU 33% (and its only 2 total, still puzzled by the very different proportion of hospital to ICU north & south) /9