Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 15 September 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Update on Covid-19: Discussion

Professor Philip Nolan:

Principally, the testing of children under four has trebled, with almost no increase in cases detected. The testing in children aged 5 to 12 has trebled, with, as I said, about a 50% increase in cases detected. That may simply be increased ascertainment. In other words, it is not an increase in incidence, but that more cases are being found because of the high level of testing. We will see that in the next couple of weeks. The demand for testing is declining in almost all other age groups.

In those age groups, it is being driven by people developing symptoms and coming forward for testing, whereas in the younger age group, it is being driven by concern about contacts and those asymptomatic contacts coming forward for testing. This phenomenon is usually transient. Not only is there consideration about how policy might change in the coming weeks, but human behaviour will change in the coming weeks as people become less concerned about the impact of schools opening. That is what we saw before.

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