A leading Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine has warned people will have to stop socialising for several months, in order to bring the third wave of the virus under control.
Dr Catherine Motherway says it’s more important now than ever before that people stay at home and stop the spread of the virus, so that hospitals don’t become overrun.
It comes as the number of people in hospital is more than double the number at the previous peak in March and April.
Over 2,000 people with Covid-19 are being treated in Irish hospitals for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
These include 145 at University Hospital Limerick, 15 of whom are in the ICU.
Leading Consultant in Intensive Care, Dr Catherine Motherway says the ICU at the Dooradoyle facility is now at capacity, but is reassuring that a surge plan is in place, with six additional beds available, if needed.
Dr Motherway insists that redoubling our efforts to control the spread of the virus is now more crucial than ever before, to ensure that hospitals can continue to cope.
But she says people need to come to terms with the fact that socialising must stop for a number of months, not weeks.
A member of the National Public Health Emergency team says there’s too much movement across the country, and that there needs to be more done to stop the spread of Covid-19.
The Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan has appealed to employers to allow people to work from home.
The latest figures show 1 in 67 people nationwide have been infected with Covid-19 in the past two weeks alone.
Covid-19 Advisor to the Irish College of General Practitioners, NPHET’s Mary Favier says people need to stay at home.
