Thread by @andrewflood

Reluctantly returning to #Covid19Ireland updates until the current crisis passes. Todays 1425 Covid hospital cases is 138% last Thursday but the size of that increase will be partially driven by the bank holiday increasing discharges last week & delaying them this week /1

The running total of new hospital cases in last 7 days is a better guide, the 1240 new hospital cases this week is 112% previous week & well above January 2022 wave. Even allowing for so called 'incidental' increasing from 30% to 50% this is a huge pressure on healthcare /2

Thankfully the proportion of cases going to hospital (1.42%)is not rising to pre-booster levels so vaccines are holding up well in terms of severe outcomes. The small rise is probably just under testing - as before more cases mean more hospitalisations so we need cases to peak/3

No increase in deaths as yet although the last months by absolute number are among worst 1/4 of the pandemic and there is a 2-3 week lag after case increase. By month of occurrence this weeks new notified deaths were
Nov 2021 +1
Dec +2
Jan 2022 +2
Feb +9
March +21 /4

53 ICU is 156% last Thursday which is a large increase if from a low number. Again rate of flow into ICU is lower with 40 New ICU this week is 118% previous /5

And again thankfully no indication as yet of a return to severity level seen prior to the booster rollout with New ICU in week at 0.05% cases & 3.48% of new hospital cases /6

Large increase in positive swabs with todays 9541 150% last Thursday and last 3 days 134% same days last week is not unexpected given Paddys weekend but does mean that hospital rates will increase into next week, further adding to healthcare crisis /7

Some discussion from yesterday about the idea this surge doesn't matter because a higher proportion are 'incidental' - with other care being cancelled again it clearly still matters /8

https://twitter.com/andrewflood/status/1506589736021987331?s=20&t=42AoP3a0kASgzn0ydJ7N8g

The graph of the running 7 day total of cases is showing no sign yet of slowing or reversing with the 118,326 cases this week at 129% previous week. /9