Ireland’s health chief has said reaching the sad milestone of more than 1,000 patients in hospital with Covid-19 must be a “call to arms” to the public to support the health system.
Paul Reid said there was nothing positive to say about the scenario the country found itself in and the decisions that the Government had made this week – but they were the “right decisions”.
Thursday saw 1,022 people being treated in hospital with coronavirus including 95 in ICU.
There were 6,521 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland and 10 additional deaths linked to the disease.
The figure comes a day after the Government unveiled strict new lockdown measures amid escalating hospital admissions and a record number of cases.
Updated / Thursday, 7 Jan 2021
23:29
The HSE said it would continue to administer the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on a two-dose schedule within 21 days
The head of the Health Service Executive has said that 15,314 first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered from the 81,900 doses that have been delivered.
Chief Executive Paul Reid said the programme is on track to have 35,000 doses delivered by the end of the week.
Mr Reid said that inoculations had been given across the seven hospital groups at 35 locations.
He also said that an agreement with private hospitals to use their facilities to help ease the pressure caused by the coronavirus on the public hospital system is being finalised.