A UHW Surgical Pathologist has warned against 'Covid complacency' in order to avoid a fourth wave of the disease.
Rob Landers, a former Clinical Director at the hospital, says the third wave has seen people longer in hospital, sicker for longer and getting more long-term symptoms.
And urging people to remain vigilant, he said there remained "every risk" still of a new wave of the virus.
Speaking to Damien Tiernan on Deise Today this morning. Rob Landers said that as of 8pm last night, there were 22 inpatients with Covid in UHW, some of them "very sick" and three in ICU.
"It is far less that what we had in January but far more than where we were last year," he said, adding that with the vaccination programme currently off target, the disease is still very much a danger.
"You don't want to get this virus," he said,
"It's making people very, very sick and what we're seeing from the third wave of those in hospital is they are in hospital longer, they are sicker for longer and they are getting more long-term symptoms."
Rob Landers said there was no doubt that everyone was "fed up" with the restrictions at this stage.
However, the reality was that we'd have to stick with the situation for another few months until the vaccination programme was properly on track.
He said if people got complacent with small gatherings even, then the number of contacts rises exponentially and that's what Covid loves.
Re: the staffing situation at UHW, Rob Landers said everyone was vaccinated at this stage and that was a source of relief to all.
He said the number of staff out on Covid sick leave had "plummeted dramatically" thankfully.
He also added that staff were currently working on trying to reopen the hospital again gradually to non-Covid activity but a lot of work still needed to be done in this regard.
You can listen back to the interview by clicking below here...
You can listen back to the full Deise Today programme from this morning, meanwhile, by clicking below here...
