James Cox
The number of Covid-19 patients in hospital has dropped by over 21 per cent this week.
The figure stood at 384 on Monday morning — the highest in nearly six months — but decreased to 302 last night.
The five-day moving average of new cases now stands 1,479, this figure is down nearly 130 on a week ago.
Infectious diseases consultant in Beaumont Hospital, Eoghan de Barra, says we're past the worst of the fourth wave.
He said: “I think we've reached the peak but there's so many moving parts to this, the increased lifting of restrictions, not having that much experience with Delta [variant], so I think there are many moving parts, so I don't think we will see numbers rise significantly, but they are going to fall at a very slow rate.”
Vaccination
Meanwhile, the head of the Covid-19 vaccination taskforce says 89 per cent of over-16s are now fully vaccinated.
The Government set a 90 per cent over-16s target as a key milestone before further pandemic restrictions can be lifted next month.
More than 30 walk-in clinics will be available this weekend, to anybody over the age of 12 who has yet to receive their first or second dose.
Yesterday, the vaccination programme administered its 7 millionth dose, and saw 90 per cent of adults reach fully vaccinated status.
Professor Brian McCraith, chair of the High-Level Taskforce on Vaccination, says the programme is making huge progress.
Prof McCraith said: “A third major metric that we're pleased with is over 89 per cent over the age of 16 are fully vaccinated, you will recall that the Government has set its threshold for having 90 per cent of those over 16 fully vaccinated. We're just one per cent away from that at the moment.”
