 The Ministry of Health and Wellness is increasing its arsenal to better respond to the increase in COVID-19 cases on Ireland. Speaking during a press conference held on Wednesday, Medical Director of the Owen King EU Hospital and Respiratory Hospital, Dr Alicia Eugene Ford, indicated that the bed capacity has been increased at the respiratory hospital. We also have the rest of the beds. I think we had 44 beds, if I remember clearly. We had pending and this has been handed over to us about two weeks ago. So now we're looking at a bed capacity of 126 beds at the respiratory hospital. And of course, we have divisions of negative, positive and suspect cases. We have to separate them. We also have a particular word for TB, because we do not want to make our TB cases, which are respiratory cases with COVID-19 cases. So that is a separation that is very much important. With the adoption of the New World Health Organization CDC guidelines for discharging, which was released on January 18, 2021, the medical director noted, allows for patients to spend less time in isolation, increasing the availability of beds. So you realize that persons actually spend less time in the hospital or isolated, whether it's at home or in the hospital. Of course, WHO would have made these changes supported by science. So we're looking at for symptomatic patients, that's for COVID-19 patients, we're looking at 10 days after the onset of symptoms, plus at least three days without symptoms, and that would include symptoms like fever and also without respiratory symptoms. And for asymptomatic patients, that's for COVID-19, 10 days after you've gotten the positive COVID-19 test. I need to make it clear that even though persons are clear for COVID-19, doesn't mean that they may not need to stay more time in hospital, because persons don't only come for COVID-19, you may have a patient who came in who has COVID-19 positive test or feeling unwell, but they do have other comorbidities. So once we have cleared this person and we've told them that they no longer COVID-19 positive, we would have to transfer that person to OKUH for them to be managed for the other comorbidities, because we cannot discharge you until you're actually stable to go out. The human capacity within the hospitals is to be increased as well. In addition to the extra beds, you'd obviously need extra staffing and then arrangements are already being made to bring in extra nurses, extra physicians, the clinical support staff, the porters, the domestics, all of these are in, it's happening already in the pipeline, so it's a situation where changes are being made slowly to accommodate the increase in patients that are coming in. Medical director Dr Alisha Eugene Ford.