Ireland has seen a huge spike in excess mortality that rivals the peak of the pandemic — yet Covid-19 is no longer the primary cause of death, The Sunday Times can reveal.
Post-pandemic pressures on the HSE such as treatment backlogs and a wave of late diagnoses allied to the added pressures on the health system of a lingering “twindemic” of flu and Covid-19 all appear to be taking their toll.
The seven-day rolling average of deaths reported on January 9, 2023 was 152 — almost as high as the weekly average of 156 reported on January 29, 2021 — the peak of the disastrous third wave that triggered a six-month nationwide lockdown.
HSE
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LATEST FIGURES SHOW that no cases of flu have been transmitted in Ireland this winter.
Figures released by the HSE show that there have been no outbreaks of the illness since early October, the period when annual counts traditionally begin.
The health service noted that the low figures are due to the disruption that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused to influenza networks across the globe.
Figures from the same time last year show that there were two deaths and 107 new confirmed cases of the flu reported during the same week in 2019, with 143 patients in hospital with the illness on 8 December.