{"id":292535,"date":"2026-01-19T17:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T17:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/292535\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T17:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T17:57:07","slug":"flu-numbers-seem-to-have-plateaued-says-hse-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/292535\/","title":{"rendered":"Flu numbers seem to have plateaued, says HSE \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The level of influenza cases \u201cseem to have reached a plateau\u201d since the Christmas period, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/hse\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/hse\/\">HSE<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In a statement on Monday, the health service said there were 1,910 cases of influenza last week, a small increase on the 1,803 cases a fortnight ago. These are both down significantly from the pre-Christmas peak of 3,544 cases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The HSE said there are 448 people hospitalised with respiratory illnesses, which includes  42 people with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/covid-19\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/covid-19\/\">Covid-19<\/a>, 127 with respiratory syncytial virus and 279 people with flu.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/health-protection-surveillance-centre\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/health-protection-surveillance-centre\/\">Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HSPC)<\/a>, there were 429 people hospitalised with flu in the first week of January.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The number of people hospitalised with  flu reached its peak in the 3rd last week of 2025, with 818 cases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/2025\/12\/12\/flu-jab-uptake-among-hse-healthcare-workers-dismal-with-only-29-vaccinated\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Flu jab uptake among HSE healthcare workers \u2018dismal\u2019 with only 29% vaccinatedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Despite the decline in numbers being hospitalised, the HSE has urged people to remain vigilant, as it says case numbers remain high and hospitals across Ireland are busy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Chief clinical officer of the HSE Dr <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/colm-henry\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/colm-henry\/\">Colm Henry<\/a> welcomed that flu cases had started to plateau. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cHowever, we know from experience that hospitals experience exceptionally high demand throughout the winter, particularly in January,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">There has been increased investment to enable extra GP hours and out-of-service appointments. All of the HSE primary care centres are open, he said, adding that people  will still experience waiting times for care.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He urged people to continue to follow  public health advice by staying at home when sick where possible, being up-to-date with vaccines and considering healthcare services other than hospitals for treatment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The level of influenza cases \u201cseem to have reached a plateau\u201d since the Christmas period, the HSE has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[78],"tags":[118227,64,18,135,114872,60,19,17],"class_list":["post-292535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-colm-henry","tag-covid-19","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-health-protection-surveillance-centre","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115923061496233450","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}