The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) warned the Government a “major increase” in people socialising could see up to 1,200 cases of coronavirus infection diagnosed per day by the second week of January 2021.
In a letter sent last week, the group warned Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly that significant growth in socialisation and the diversity of contacts over the festive period could “lead to much higher levels of viral transmission than have been seen to date”.
The public health team’s modelling shows that if the R number, which estimates how quickly the disease is spreading through the population, grows to 2.0 from December 22nd to January 6th, 300-450 cases per day could be seen by New Year’s Day, and 800-1200 per day by the second week of January.
The letter also outlines more conservative projections, which are based on keeping the R number at 1.4 of below.
In these scenarios cases could still be as high as 300-600 per day by the second week in January.
The letter, sent on December 3rd, and after the Government decided to unwind Level 5 restrictions, also flags concerns around international travel which “has the potential to rapidly undermine the progress achieved by the country in recent weeks”.
Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan told Mr Donnelly that Ireland made “great progress” during the recent lockdown period, with “significant suppression of viral transmission”.
However, he says there is “significant concern” over the level of infection, which has stalled.
“The number of confirmed cases in intensive care and deaths associated with Covid-19 are not reducing. We continue to observe persistently high incidence in older persons, a population group most vulnerable to morbidity and mortality associated with the disease,” he said.
