A number of new Covid variants are showing an ability to spread extremely quickly and can also evade vaccine protection, meaning there could be a surge of infections before the end of November according to experts.
On Wednesday, Professor Breda Smyth said the public needs to “be prepared” for a return of mass Covid infection as hospitals work to get ready for what will likely be an “extremely busy period.”
In a statement, Professor Smyth confirmed there were 405 confirmed Covid-19 cases in the hospital on Wednesday morning, which has increased by 23 percent from 329 cases last week on 28 September and by 74 percent from 233 cases on 14 September.
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"We have seen an average of 60 new Covid-19 hospitalisations per day observed in the last seven days.
"Not all Covid-19 cases in hospital have been admitted due to their infection, but every additional Covid positive patient adds to the strain on our hospital system as we enter what is expected to be an extremely busy period."
While case numbers begin to grow, the public is also being urged to book their booster vaccines "as soon as you are eligible.”
She went on to say: "As of 27 September, approximately 70 percent of cases hospitalised for Covid-19 were aged 65 years and older, and of these, more than one in four had not completed their primary Covid-19 vaccine course and approximately two in five had not yet received any booster vaccine.”
Now the Biozentrum research facility at the University of Basel has warned there are subvariants that are showing an ability to spread rapidly.
Experts fear new variants such as BQ1 and BA.2.75.2 could create a spike in infections in the near future.
Cornelius Roemer, a computational biologist with Biozentrum, told The Independent: “Omicron was maybe the first variant that was good at evading immunity and that’s why it caused such a large wave.
“Now for the first time, we see many lineages, many variants emerging parallel that all have very similar mutations and that all manage to still evade immunity pretty well."
He added: "We already have cases going up and we know that there will be another surge due to the variants."
Mr. Roemer forecasts there could be a new wave of Covid in the UK driven by the new variants by the end of November. This would easily travel to Ireland within a matter of days or weeks with large volume travel back in action.
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