Peak of the virus

Brendan Burgess said:
Part of the low count today may be due to the lack of testing kits.

www.irishtimes.com

Páirc Uí Chaoimh testing centre closes due to lack of kits

Country’s largest coronavirus testing facility due to reopen on Monday, says HSE
www.irishtimes.com www.irishtimes.com
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Due to the time it takes to gather, transport and test these kits I would say it’s unlikely that the results from yesterday were affected at all. Today/Tomorrow is more likely to see any potential skewed figures and one site from 44 down is unlikely to throw off the numbers hugely.
 
mathepac said:
For me the peak is when there are no new diagnoses of the virus and when the last person diagnosed as infected either dies or recovers to a stage where they are no longer infective.
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That, by definition, is the end of the outbreak. A "peak" is the highest number - not the lowest

As mentioned, there are probably three "peaks" which are distinct but related - number of infected, number hospitalised / ICU, number of deaths. If you're looking at managing scarce resources (hospital beds, ICU resources, staffing availability), the relevant peak is hospitalisation - that's what they are trying to manage
 
Leper said:
I predict that before this pandemic is over in the rest of europe that it will be well over in Ireland. I predict we will be taking Covid-19 patients from other countries for hospitalisation here. Let's stop knocking our own for a change.
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Now, that's a WOW! I really do pray that your prediction doesn't happen.
 
Susie2017 said:
Id be wary about interpreting numbers of positives over the weekends. Generally there are only a couple of scientists on call ( in hospital laboratories anyway).
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There's one in my extended family, no test outstanding there yesterday anyway, but that was more down to centres running out of kits that staffing levels.
 
Eireog007 said:
  • The entire world is currently working with a restricted number of test kits and you’re referring to one test site out of 44 which was down for less than a day.
  • 55,000 would cover 1.2% of the population I think you’ve misread your calculator there. Also we need enough tests to cover the potentially infected population not the entire population.
  • It is far easier to set up swabbing locations to easily cover all of the country than have everybody drive to the smaller number of testing labs which is also the more efficient way to collect as many samples as possible.
  • Have you any numbers to back up this claim? The number of tests being checked is increasing every day and the new criteria has restricted the number of people being checked.
  • Covered in my point above, the centre at Parc Ui Coaimh was down for half a day and will be back operational today.
  • Government body says one thing vs one unnamed source. Again do you have any sources with any details at all? Once again no country in the world has an exact idea of how many ventilators they will need but we somehow should.
  • Once again one person making a claim (it may be accurate). The UK government also initially stated their lockdown would only last a number of weeks. It’s almost as if no government can predict when the peak of infections will hit and don’t want to tell everybody that they will be locked down for months on end as they are afraid of unrest and a drop in public engagement. It’s also possible that they are adjusting their response to an unprecedented situation as new information comes in. Shocking I know.
  • Once again please provide any proof at all of this and how it will negatively effect testing.
  • Try sticking to facts please and not half truths/completely unsubstantiated rumours from Whatsapp etc.
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We are testing 5000 a day. The UK are testing 10,000 a day.
There are now two groups of people in Ireland;
1) Healthcare sector workers and those sourcing, supplying and making equipment to support their efforts. That includes tests, PPE and Ventilators as well as a myriad of other stuff that we don't think of.
2) Everyone else.

The most important group is the second group. They are the proactive group. It is they who will determine whether the first group is overwhelmed by this disease. Their actions, and not those of the first group, will decide how many people die.
If the second group don't do their part then it doesn't matter how many ICU beds, Ventilators or tests we have.

The first group is the reactive group. They will react to the actions of the second group. They are hostages to fortune but they will suffer the brunt of the effects of this crisis.
 
Purple said:
We are testing 5000 a day. The UK are testing 10,000 a day.
There are now two groups of people in Ireland;
1) Healthcare sector workers and those sourcing, supplying and making equipment to support their efforts. That includes tests, PPE and Ventilators as well as a myriad of other stuff that we don't think of.
2) Everyone else.

The most important group is the second group. They are the proactive group. It is they who will determine whether the first group is overwhelmed by this disease. Their actions, and not those of the first group, will decide how many people die.
If the second group don't do their part then it doesn't matter how many ICU beds, Ventilators or tests we have.

The first group is the reactive group. They will react to the actions of the second group. They are hostages to fortune but they will suffer the brunt of the effects of this crisis.
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Hey Purple, not sure why you quoted my message there, are you responding to one of my points?
 
Eireog007 said:
  • Once again please provide any proof at all of this and how it will negatively effect testing.
  • Try sticking to facts please and not half truths/completely unsubstantiated rumours from Whatsapp etc.
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Yesterday's Sunday Times, I don't use Whatscrap, etc.
 
Eireog007 said:
Hey Purple, not sure why you quoted my message there, are you responding to one of my points?
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I'm making the point that the health service and government are secondary to the public in terms of who will decide how bad this gets.
 
Purple said:
I'm making the point that the health service and government are secondary to the public in terms of who will decide how bad this gets.
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I didn’t think I’d made a contrary point. I agree that the public have the most say in the severity and duration of the outbreak in this country. Although guidance from the government is a big part of pointing the way.
 
Eireog007 said:
I didn’t think I’d made a contrary point. I agree that the public have the most say in the severity and duration of the outbreak in this country. Although guidance from the government is a big part of pointing the way.
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Sure, I was just expanding on your post, not disagreeing with you.
 
Yes, it is. This is because of resources, mainly the reagent for the lab, for which there is huge demand worldwide, demand up 1000% apparently. Hopefully it will become more available very soon as the authorities would like to test much higher numbers.

However if those with any symptoms self-isolate for two weeks, it will stop the spread, even if they don't get a test.

Number of confirmed new cases are not increasing as much as they were, however I think this is probably influenced by the restraints of the testing.
 
seamus m said:
We are only testing 1700 a day 7 to 10 day delays, backlog also in labs. Now 15 per cent positive rates on testing. Our testing is falling way behind
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That is worrying Seamus and one wonders if behind the scenes there's more than a few things going askew? I find that the info we the ordinary public are being given just doesn't stack up when one does the Math. One of the most worrying of all the data coming out is that almost 25% of the infected are medical staff.
 
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RedOnion said:
Do you have a source for a statement like that? Or have I misunderstood your post?
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Yes, here you go. I should have included it with the post.

The latest available data relates to 2,677 cases reported up until midnight on Sunday.

Of these, there were 118 clusters of infection involving 494 cases.

The median age of those with the virus was 47.

Up until midnight on Sunday, Dr Holohan said there have been 113 admissions to intensive care units.

A quarter of all those with the virus are healthcare workers, accounting for 647 cases.

Dr Holohan said that one quarter of these workers with the virus picked it up via "healthcare-related transmission", while 61% of the infections were acquired in the community.
 
noproblem said:
That is worrying Seamus and one wonders if behind the scenes there's more than a few things going askew? I find that the info we the ordinary public are being given just doesn't stack up when one does the Math. One of the most worrying of all the data coming out is the almost 25% of the medical staff going down
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Reading between the lines there has been certainly something askew in nursing homes for sure and I wonder how much of the healthcare workers with covid and deaths are from said homes.I also wonder if the 15per cent rate could be got higher by a visual examination instead of phone consultation even through glass window of homes.This waiting time has to be major issue with track and tracing and clusters.
 
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