179 people are being treated for Covid-19 in Irish hospitals – an increase of 20 from yesterday.
It’s the highest number of patients with the disease since June 2nd.
Of that national figure, nine patients with Covid-19 are being treated at University Hospital Limerick and one at South Tipp General in Clonmel.
There are 25 people being treated for coronavirus in intensive care across the country., a slight fall from yesterday’s figure.
HSE CEO Paul Reid says they could get to a “surge capacity” of 350 ICU beds – but that would lead to other problems.
“What happens when you scale up to 350 is you are cancelling other services – it’s not like we have that stock to utilise.”
“A surge capacity means prioritising and stopping some other services so we don’t want to get near to those levels. We’ve done it in the past – we’ve got to near 400 but the impact on other services are severe and significant.”
