The situation is becoming "very difficult across the board."

Ireland's Covid-19 situation is becoming more serious, and now the hospitals are calling back healthcare workers who have been named as close contacts, provided they're showing no symptoms. Health Service Executive Chief Operations Officer Anne O'Connor told RTÉ's Morning Ireland, that up to "14 hospitals are dealing with more than 50 cases of Covid-19 in patients and six of those are dealing with more than 100." She went on to say that there are "in excess of 7,000 people" in the healthcare, nursing home and community services sectors who haven't been able to work for different reasons, one of which is having Covid 19. There are currently more than 1,700 people being treated in various hospitals across the country for Covid 19. This is why staff who are deemed close contacts and not showing any signs of Covid-19 are being asked to come back to work, where they will be monitored closely but will still be able to do their jobs. O'Connor said that some healthcare workers who are asymptomatic close contacts are being "monitored while at work by occupational health experts" and have been ale to get back to work. She added: "We have had to do that, you'll know from the weekend that we had to put a call out to staff to come into work at Letterkenny because we were under such pressure, and I would see that happening in other sites." Things are very bad at the moment and healthcare system is finding itself under a lot of pressure with not enough beds and not enough staff to help. She said the demand is "so high" that everyone needs to pitch in and get involved, even if they are close contacts. The situation is becoming "very difficult across the board", in hospitals and once again in nursing homes. HSE's National Director of Acute Operations has also warned that we could see numbers in ICU reach up to 300.