The once-regular Covid-19 press conferences held by Nphet have become a thing of the past while the relaxation of the restrictions we have all been living under has been fairly generally welcomed.
Many people would be forgiven for thinking that the pandemic is over. But this week’s figures have shown cases creeping back up again, not just in terms of positive tests, but also in our hospital wards, ICUs and, anecdotally, in our nursing homes and schools.
On Tuesday there were 4,423 PCR-confirmed cases of Covid-19 with 6,957 people having registered a positive antigen test on Monday. On Wednesday, there were 829 Covid-19 patients in hospital, including 51 in ICU.
Bear in mind that these figures are relying on all people who take an antigen test at home to register the result themselves on the HSE portal.
With no regular outbursts from ‘Dr Tony’ to keep us in check, we must now rely on each other to ‘check’ ourselves and remind ourselves Covid-19 is still a clear and present danger to many of us, and it’s still too early to become complacent.
