HSE: Covid Surge Putting Significant Pressure On Hospitals

The Health Minister says hundreds of thousands of people are getting Covid every week but there are no plans for new restrictions.

Stephen Donnelly says "serious measures" would be needed to control the surge of infections driven by the BA2 variant.

Over 10,000 daily cases are currently being reported but he told a private Fianna Fail meeting last night the true numbers are likely "several times" that.

The Irish Independent reports Minister Donnelly said the high cases are putting pressure on hospitals but the number of people in ICU remains "relatively low".

Meanwhile, the HSE says hospitals are dealing with a level of disruption they haven't seen before due to the current Covid surge.

1,605 people are in hospital with the virus, with 54 in ICU.

Chief Clinical Officer, Dr Colm Henry, says it's putting a lot of pressure on the healthcare system;

"Certainly these numbers we're seeing huge disruption and many of our frontline staff are reporting a level of disruption they've never seen and that's because many of the wards are given over to Coivd-19 patients, that requires specific infection and prevention control measures and our inability to discharge people back out into other settings."