Cases of Covid-19 in the State could double again before this current wave begins to plateau, a professor of immunology has said.

By 8am on Tuesday, there were 1,605 confirmed cases of the virus in Irish hospitals, of whom 50 are in ICU . Over the previous 24 hours, 198 Covid patients were admitted, while 130 were discharged.

Tuesday’s figure is a slight decrease on Monday when 1,624 patients were in hospital. However, this is typical of a trend where figures tend to be higher on Mondays due to delayed discharges over the weekend.

Hospital Report

Christine Loscher, professor of immunology at DCU, said last night cases are high at the moment because of the dominance of the highly-transmissible Omicron sub-variant BA.2, which now accounts for almost 95 per cent of cases here.

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“The levels in the community are really high. The risk of catching Covid at the moment has never been as high,” she told Virgin Media’s Tonight Show.

These case numbers will continue to increase over the coming weeks, she added.

“I think we’ll see a doubling again before it starts to plateau and starts to drop,” she said.

“This surge will pass but at the moment the risk of Covid in the community is very high and the WHO advice is always that we should do every single thing we can to reduce transmission.

“I feel like we’re doing a lot but we’re not doing everything. Mask-wearing, I think, is really key at the moment.”

On Tuesday the Department of Health reported 5,962 new PCR-confirmed cases of Covid while an additional 8,587 people registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal

Although the sub-variant is not believed to be more dangerous than its predecessor, there is a clear translation to hospitalisations in recent weeks, she said.

“That’s a concern because the healthcare system serves more than just Covid patients.”

Prof Loscher’s comments come as the health service warned of the pressure it is under as a result of the rising number of patients with Covid.

The HSE's chief clinical officer Colm Henry said the vaccination programme was providing some protection and that without it "the [HEALTH]system would have keeled over," he told RTÉ's Morning Ireland.

The unvaccinated were still disproportionate in terms of hospitalisation and half of those in critical care had not received their booster vaccine, he said.

He said 6,000 healthcare staff were absent from work because of the virus.

Thanks to the vaccination programme, the symptoms experienced by the majority of those infected were less severe, but the number of cases was still impacting the flow of patients through hospitals and their discharge to care settings.

Hospitals were experiencing “considerable disruption”, he said, adding that the current level of cases was leading to the cancellation of scheduled procedures and was also having an impact on community care.

Dr Henry said while it was up to the Government to make a decision on reintroducing mandatory mask wearing, he called on people to wear masks in public settings.

There needed to be greater compliance about the wearing of masks. “The pandemic has not gone away”, he added.