Irish health officials believe the South African contained COVID-19 variant

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Health officials in Ireland, where a more contagious variant of the coronavirus first discovered in England is on the rise, said Saturday they believe three cases of another new variant found in South Africa are included.

Ireland is grappling with a COVID-19 wave that surpassed last year’s first wave. It confirmed the first cases of the more contagious variant found in South Africa on Friday in people who traveled from South Africa to Ireland over the Christmas holidays.

Ireland this week reported an increasing presence of the variant first found in England. It was detected in 25% of positive cases further tested in the week to January 3, against only 9% two weeks earlier.

“The UK variant is of more concern to us purely because of the amount of virus present on the island, and we know it is transmitted in the community,” Cillian De Gascun, head of Ireland’s National Virus Laboratory, told the national broadcaster RTE.

“The good thing about the South African variant is that we know exactly where those cases came from, they have been contained, monitored and contacted, and as far as I know there has been no further transmission.”

The government announced its strictest lockdown measures since early last year on Wednesday, warning that a “tsunami” of infections fueled by the UK variant and the loosening of the curbs before Christmas could overwhelm the healthcare system.

The number of patients in Irish hospitals with COVID-19 rose 12% over a 24-hour period on Saturday to 1,285, after surpassing the peak of 881 identified in the first wave of infections in recent days.

Fourteen patients were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). That brought the total critical care rate to 119, leaving just 27 of the 284 ICU beds in the country’s public hospitals empty.

Those hospitals can safely increase ICU capacity to 375, the head of Ireland Health Service Executive (HSE) said this week. The HSE has also reached an agreement on the acquisition of IC beds from private hospitals for COVID-19 admissions.