Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 January 2022
659. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Health his plans to publish up to date age-related data in relation to Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations; the reason for the delay in publishing up-to-date Covid-19 statistics relating to children particularly in view of the recent rise in Covid-19 infections among children; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3562/22]
View answerReporting of Covid-19 cases amongst children is based on notifications made to the national Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting system (CIDR) managed by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC).
Given the recent surge in cases, the reporting time (time from when a case is diagnosed to when they are notified to the HPSC on the Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting system (CIDR)) has increased. For this reason, the daily case number of PCR confirmed cases reported since 22nd December 2021 has been an estimate based on positive SARS-CoV-2 results uploaded to the HSE COVID Care Tracker the preceding day. These data are provisional and do not represent notified cases. They serve to provide an up-to-date picture of trends during this surge period.
The notification of cases on CIDR has continued. However, publication of the HPSC’s daily ‘Epidemiology of COVID-19 in Ireland - 14 day report’ is currently paused given the increased reporting time and prioritisation of resources during this surge period.
This is the report which usually contains details of cases, hospitalisation and ICU admissions of children in the age groups 0-4 yrs, 5-12 yrs and 13-18 yrs. Publication of this report will resume as soon as possible. Uploads of this data to the COVID-19 Data Hub have also been paused.
Data on COVID-19 cases notified on CIDR in the age groups 0-4 yrs, 5-12 yrs and 13-18 yrs are currently being published on a weekly basis in the HPSC’s ‘Weekly Report on the Epidemiology of COVID-19 in Ireland’ www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/epidemiologyofcovid-19inirelandweeklyreports/
However, the HPSC note that ‘Due to the current surge in case numbers the overall reporting time (time from when a case is notified to when they are uploaded to CIDR) has increased since week 51. Therefore data on recent cases is subject to reporting delays and may not be complete. A technical issue experienced over the Christmas weekend and reduced surveillance capacity over the Christmas period contributed to the increased reporting time. However, the current case numbers continue to exceed capacity leading to the increased reporting time. Work is ongoing among surveillance partners to increase capacity and reduce reporting time.’ This means that data presented in the Weekly Epidemiology Report would be an underestimate.
The latest report was published on 19th January for Week 2 of 2022. During Week 2, 3,278 cases were notified on CIDR in the 0-4 yrs age group, 7,958 in the 5-12 yrs and 8,054 in the 13-18 yrs age group. As noted, this would be an underestimate.
More detailed analysis of cases in these age groups is published in the HPSC report ‘Weekly Epidemiological Report on COVID-19 cases aged 0-18 years and COVID-19 mass testing in schools in Ireland’ www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/epidemiologyofcovid-19inirelandcasesaged0-18years/
Data on deaths by age group is published each week in the HPSC ‘Weekly Deaths Report’. As of the latest report (19th January 2022) a total of 8 COVID-19 related deaths have been notified in Ireland since the beginning of the pandemic who were aged under 25 years. Due to the small number of persons who died due to COVID-19 in the age groups 0-25 years, this information is aggregated in order to protect patient confidentiality. www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/weeklyreportoncovid-19deathsreportedinireland/
While publication of daily data from CIDR notifications on hospitalisation and ICU admission by age group is currently paused (due to the surge issues noted above) the HSE’s Daily Operations Update reports on the number of COVID-19 patients on site in the three Children’s Hospitals www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/newsfeatures/covid19-updates/coronavirus-daily-operations-updates.html. As of the latest report (19th January) there were 11 COVID-19 patients admitted on site across the three CHI hospitals (7 CHI Crumlin, 2 CHI Temple Street and 2 CHI Tallaght).
