A further 3,024 cases of Covid-19 have been reported in the Republic, the National Public Health Emergency Team has confirmed.
There are 458 Covid-positive people in hospital, including 90 in intensive care units and 250 receiving advanced respiratory support.
It comes as the chief executive of the HSE, Paul Reid, told a briefing on Thursday that the daily increasing levels of Covid is causing “significant and unrelenting pressure” on the health system.
He said almost a third of intensive care beds are being taken up with Covid patients.
Most of those in hospital (39 per cent) are aged between 65-79 years, meanwhile just over half (52 per cent) of those in intensive care have not received the vaccination.
While hospitals are “coping”, Mr Reid said, they are not able to do the elective cases they would like.
“We are at a level of transmission in the community that has forced many aspects of our response of our healthcare system overall into surge responses where we are dealing with a very disproportionate set of demands across the boards whether that’s in our general practice, testing and tracing system overall, our public health teams responding, our hospitals and ICU and right now our compliance checks,” he said.
Outlining the impact the demands across the health service are having, he said 3,500 staff are out of work through Covid-19.
“That is putting a huge pressure on our staff,” he said.
“The actions of the health service alone won’t get us out of this current situation, if cases continue to rise there comes a point when no additional testing and tracing, or vaccination or hospital beds or ICU will help to turn the tide.”
Mr Reid urged a range of actions by the public to help turn the tide, including to get vaccinated, follow public health messages such as social distancing, wearing face coverings and staying at home if you have symptoms of the virus.
“A plea from the HSE is we believe these will work and we believe this will help us turn it around,” he said.
But he said than neither he or the HSE are calling for the further public health restrictions.
HSE chief operation officer Anne O’Connor outlined emergency department attendance figures as being up 21 per cent from last year.
She described a “very busy system” with “no real geographical differences”.
Mr Reid also said it was “never too late” to come forward for the Covid vaccine.
He insisted there is no judgment and the health service remains available to support people coming forward for the jab.
“For those who remain unvaccinated, we remain available to answer any queries, to answer any of your concerns,” he said.
“We continue to see more and more people come forward for the first vaccination, we’re seeing on average about 1,800 people a day still coming forward to register, and everybody who is unvaccinated should take encouragement from that.
“It’s never too late, nobody is judging anybody in terms of when or how they come through for vaccination, we’re there to support people and make them feel comfortable in coming forward.”
