800 people a week expected to be hospitalised with flu, nursing homes told they can limit visitors as winter illness wave peaks

In the week before Christmas, 966 people were reported as having flu while 921 had Covid-19 infections and there were 671 cases of RSV, mostly in very young children.

While RSV is down from a high of 985 in recent weeks, there is still a lot of the virus circulating and parents need to maintain vigilance, said Greg Martin of the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.

Dr Henry said the better preparation meant that around 1,600 beds were available to cater for emergency and other patients who needed to be admitted during the festive season compared to 450 last Christmas which resulted in record overcrowding.

Read at Independent.ie