Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
OVER 30,000 COVID-19 tests have been carried out so far in Ireland as the country works to stem the spread of the coronavirus, health officials confirmed this evening.
Dr Cillian De Gascun, chair of the HSE’s Coronavirus Expert Advisory Group, confirmed that 30,213 tests had been carried out but that constraints relating to testing has meant delayed results for some people.
Dr De Gascun said “signficant constraints at a global level” relating to supply issues, including supply of laboratory reagents, has meant prioritising hospitalised patients and healthcare workers for testing for Covid-19.
“Unfortunately there will be an awful lot of people in the community who will have been waiting maybe seven to 10 days for a result,” said Dr De Gascun.
“That was obviously unanticipated and it is unfortunate but doesn’t really change our plan of ramping up testing over the coming weeks to achieve between 10,000 and 15,000 test per day,” he said.
Last week, health officials decided to change the case definition for Covid-19 tests, narrowing down the focus on particular groups.
Dr De Gascun said this evening that since the case definition changed, the positivity rate had risen from 6% to 15% for those tested in the past seven days. “That’s one of the things we were trying to achieve, by changing the case definition, was to esnure we were testing the right people,” he said.
Dr De Gascun stressed that testing is done for “a population benefit and not an individual benefit” and urged people who are symptomatic to self-isolate for 14 days and that they will receive a test result.
This evening, it was confirmed that there are a further 325 cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.
Another 17 people are confirmed to have died from the coronavirus, according to figures released by the Department of Health this evening.
Of those 17 new reported deaths, the median age is 84, and eight of those patients were reported to have had an underlying condition.
Four of the patients were female, and 13 were male.
Eight patients were located in the east, three in the south, three in the north-west, and three in the west of the country.
It brings to 71 the number of deaths from Covid-19 in Ireland; the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases now stands at 3,235.
- With reporting from Michelle Hennessy at the Department of Health
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Is Charlie Flanagan still TD Ah here I give up
This government has managed to get the lifetime of their own government out of the Commission on the Defence Forces. It was lauded in the beginning as a template for change. That was in 2019. The public and others were invited to make submissions in 2020, With the report due for release that December. December came and went, and the report was finally released in february, the Govt sat on it until making the obvious decision to accept the recommendations of LOA2 in July, but with an implementation group who would report back in 6 months. We’ll not go to LOA2 right away though, we’ll do it in phases, increasing defence spending in increments equal to the cost of One military aircraft per year.Here we are now almost June 2023, with nothing substantial achieved apart from a few more high paid civil service posts filled.
Tanagan would have us fighting under the Union Flag if he could. Does anybody really care what he says in this day and age?
Ireland should be a respected neutral country with an army capable of defending the country. Personally I would like weapons that could kill lots of people, this would deter even the worlds biggest countries from invading us.
@Brian Boru:
Nukes…
@Gerry Dornan: whoopee cushions. Can you imagine Putin sitting on one?
Maybe he should get the black and Tans to help out
I’m surprised at Cathal Berry. He should know the one person that will slow this process down to a crawl on that committee. Waiting to appoint a Head of Transformation (there must be a civil servant due retirement)someone who will then appoint someone and hey presto it will be election time. The Sec of the Department was put there for a reason. To make sure Defence is treated at a snails pace. Give nothing to the Military at all costs. I have never seen a Secretary of the Department do or introduce anything constructive EVER. Thats why they are kept.
So the chairperson in charge of a committee for implementing modernisation after meeting 6 times says that a head of transformation is due to be appointed but that other measures are delayed because of the IRG group publication which delayed the development of an implement implementation plan, and that the establishment of an (enquiry) and development of the terms of reference for it and potential interface on both of those and ensuring that the implementation plan is comprehensive also delayed. Please read that back and realise why so much goes at the snails pace mentioned in the article
We should arm and uniform our new Irish brothers, that would be great for everyone.
So the notoriously thin-skinned Flanagan, who was rightly demoted after the last general election, is mouthing off again…
Yawn!
I have a copy of the Epstein Flight log…
go to http://www.realchiefpolice.com or
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/truther
@Real Chieflice Trump MAGA 2024:
Tosspot
have your say