The number of COVID patients being treated in Irish hospitals has increased by 60 in the past 24 hours.
There were 521 COVID patients in hospital this morning – up 60 since yesterday and 78 since this day last week.
The number of patients in intensive care has dropped by 10 since last week however – with 92 recorded this morning.
It comes after the HSE reported COVID positivity rates of 50% in the PCR tests carried out yesterday.
Some 6,735 new cases were reported yesterday; however, there are concerns that backlogs in COVID testing are leaving many cases undiagnosed.
Yesterday’s results came from just 13,149 tests carried out.
One week ago, the positivity rate was just 16.8%.
This afternoon’s confirmed cases are expected to be around 11,000 after 10,858 swabs came back positive.
Just short of 25,000 tests were carried out in the past 24 hours – making for a positivity rate of 43.5%.
10853 positive swabs, 43.52% positivity on 24,940 tests.
7 day test positivity is 30.5%.- Tuesday, December 28th 2021#COVID19Ireland pic.twitter.com/fcHWYeLOHR
— COVID-19 Data Ireland (@COVID19DataIE) December 28, 2021
Meanwhile, the Department of Health yesterday estimated that some 87% of Ireland’s COVID cases are from the Omicron strain of the virus.
