Covid Ireland: 5,622 new cases confirmed after Dr Tony Holohan’s somber Christmas warning

A total of 5,622 additional people have been tested for Covid-19 in Ireland, while 487 patients are currently being treated in hospital.

There are now 114 people receiving treatment in intensive care units across the country.

The latest figures were confirmed by the Health Ministry on Saturday.

It comes after Ireland was hit by a new wave of restrictions in an attempt to slow the spread of Covid-19.

Tawisach Michael Martin told a letter to the nation Friday that restrictions have been tightened again for the Christmas season.

The night economy takes the biggest blow as part of the government’s desperate battle to prevent the mutated variant Omicron from taking hold.

However, the biggest warning came from chief medical officer Dr. Tony Holohan, who wrote a sobering letter to Health Secretary Stephen Donnelly.

The letter, seen by the Irish Mirror, reads: «Typically December and the Christmas/New Year period is a time of higher levels of socialization.

“The experience of last December and Christmas/New Years shows that the improved compliance with public health advice that we have observed in recent weeks may not be sustained.

“If effective social contact increases to the levels seen in December 2020, even for a short period, under optimistic scenarios with high immunity to infection (and no omicron evading this immunity), cases are approaching 6000 to 8000 per day at the peak of a long wave, More pessimistically, if immunity to infection is low, or shunned by the omicron, a very large surge is possible, up to 8000-15,000 cases per day at its peak.”

The chief medical officer said the most pessimistic but plausible scenarios show that 750-1,300 people need general hospital care and 200-400 people need critical care, or 950-1700 total need hospital care, in January 2022.

Dr Holohan frankly advised the government that «nightclubs should close» – a move the Cabinet agreed to take on Friday.