Covid-19 community assessment hubs to launch today
The death toll from Covid-19 in the Republic is 158, as 21 further deaths have been confirmed.
Yesterday, 390 new cases were detected bringing the total number of positive tests to 4,994.
As of Friday at midnight, 165 people were admitted to intensive care units while 1,163 cases are associated with healthcare workers.
Community assessment hubs are to be rolled out this week starting today.
They will provide enhanced community-based supports for people who have tested positive for Covid-19.
There will be 12 to 15 of these hubs in place by the end of the week.
HSE chief operations officer, Anne O'Connor, says people with symptoms will have to contact their GP first.
"These hubs will take place in our primary care centres, they will be open seven days a week from 8am to 8pm.
"People will be referred by their GP, they will not be places that people turn up to. The idea being that we adhere to all of the correct infection control procedures.
"However, they will provide a timely assessment of people who feel that they are symptomatic."
Health Minister Simon Harris says barriers to entry for nurses are being removed to ensure more staff can be recruited.
"To waive the registration fee for any new nurse joining the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI), we the Department are going to meet the fees for any new registrant to the NMBI provided they have either an offer of a fixed-term Covid-19 employment - so they are going to work for the Health Service during Covid-19 - or that they are living in Ireland and they are available to work."
Meanwhile, Professor Anthony Staines from DCU is calling on the HSE to significantly increase its contact-tracing for the virus.
"At the moment we are only contact tracing those who have confirmed infections. When in our situation we have such delays in testing, I think that is a high risk strategy.
"I think they will bump up contact tracing so we will be contact tracing people with symptoms."
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