HSE CEO @paulreiddublin says the plan for managing and scaling up services for dealing with Covid through winter and into next year has is now ‘part of a dialogue between ourselves, the minister and the department’ and expected to go to cabinet committee next week.

Reid: “Our key concern relates to not just Covid but other key services... our hospitals are beginning to see people coming through with [lockdown-linked] mental health issues”, or “catch-up in terms of other services, where people haven’t come forwards [during lockdown].”

Schools: ‘When a case has been identified, PH teams have immediately communicated... close contacts are removed from schools, have a test on the same day, results returned in one batch with individuals informed on the next day. This is an experience we want to continue.’

HSE Ops lead Ann O’Connor: “At many of our [swabbing] sites we are seeing an approximately 25% non-attendance rate... this is becoming an issue at some of our sites.”

“We can see increased activity in many areas... mental health, significant increase, in particular in relation to psychiatry of later life, also an increased number of referrals to CAMHS.”

CAMHS: Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

Says recruitment campaign for ‘swabbers’ will be launched next week: “We are looking for many of these people, several hundred...”

Students and people interested in part-time work are sought.

Staff have been reassigned from elsewhere in the HSE to conduct swabbing until now.

Colm Henry “PH have been working 7 days a week since the start... there’d have been many more deaths were it not for them. @UnaBFallon, @abbeycollins202 @drdmulholland, all working with nurses, scientists, admins, secretaries, around the clock to protect us. Our line of defence.”

Worth noting that a group of those ‘7-day-a-week’ public health doctors have recently written to the minister and others about their contract, recruitment, and recognition of specialities. ‘We are extremely concerned about the future... our ability to work on pandemic response.’

Interesting figures from Paul Reid re people attending (or not) for swabbing appointments. "8% of close contacts test positive. And if you're symptomatic it's probably closer to 20%"

Also clarifies that 5% of asymptomatic close contacts also test positive.

Ann O'Connor says 'all, pretty much' school close contacts from cases involving children who've attended school and tested positive have shown up for swabbing...

Really useful info. The HSE has a system where a close contact is sent for testing once identified (day zero) and then again seven days after their last interaction with the confirmed case: 80% show up Day 0, 50% Day 7.

2% test positive on day 7, after negative on day 0.

From Reid, that's 2% of close contacts testing positive on day 7 having been negative on 'day 0', that sounds small but it's not all that small in the grand scheme of things.

Colm Henry says the level of community transmission is the concern in Dublin, but many are household-related.

Reid accepts there is 'an expectation' to publish data 'again' on an electoral division basis and this has been discussed as NPHET.

Letter from public health doctors to the minister referred to earlier in this thread can be read in full here: https://twitter.com/mark_coughlan/status/1301494444395503619