GPs report rise in number of Covid-19 cases

• Published date: 30 June 2022

Dr Louise Nestor of the Washington Street Medical Centre in Cork city is one GP who has noticed a rise in the COVID cases both in the busy city centre practice but also at the out of hours SouthDoc clinic. "I was in SouthDoc last Saturday night and we had a lot of very sick people - they are telling us that they are antigen negative which they probably are at the time when we are seeing them, but we would suspicious that they would be antigen positive the following day," she said

Dr Nestor said it does not appear to be more prevalent among one particular age course. However GPs are very busy with "with a lot of kiddies with a lot of sore throats and temps and sinuses that we reckon are COVID, but they are antigen negative when they are ringing you".

Positive antigen tests

She said they are getting more phone calls from people who have had positive antigen tests while also seeing more suspect cases face to face who have texted negative antigen tests. "So that's a big risk for us", she said.

Dr Michael Kennedy of the Old School House Surgery in Buttevant in north Cork said he too has noticed a significant increase in COVID over the past month. "We are seeing a definite increase in the number of cases of COVID among the general populace, but we are also seeing a number of colleagues out with it as well," he said. "It is pretty much across the board - young kids, middle aged people, older people."

However he said most patients are not very sick and typically have sore throat and gastro and upper-respiratory issues. He said they are now getting three or four COVID phone calls a day whereas it had been one or two a fortnight.

Dr Nuala O'Connor is the Irish College of General Practitioners National lead on COVID 19, but she is also seeing a substantial rise in numbers over the last three to four weeks at her own surgery at the...