Who is popular today?

The coronavirus positivity rate is now 8.4 per cent amidst “very high levels” of testing, the HSE chief executive Paul Reid said this morning, due to an earlier-than-expected surge in infections caused by the Delta variant.
Mr Reid also said more than 5.1 million vaccines have now been administered to residents of the Republic, with 63 per cent of adults fully vaccinated and 76 per cent partially.
Mr Reid said on Saturday morning that hospitalisations and ICU (intensive care) are “holding well”.
Fears are growing that Ireland could have up to 2,000 cases of coronavirus a day by the end of the month.
While a surge on cases here had been anticipated due a combination of restrictions being eased and the impact of the Delta variant, the spike in infections is happening about two weeks sooner than anticipated and moving more quickly.
A further 1,173 infections were reported in the Republic on Friday, with 79 patients in hospital and 23 in intensive care.
The State’s chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said just over 50 per cent of Friday’s cases were in those aged between 19 to 34-years-old.
Nphet member Prof Philip Nolan said on Friday that the growth in cases among 16 to 18-year-olds was exceptional”, while rates among 19 to 24-year-olds are also moving quickly.
Despite the sharp surge in cases here, and in many other countries, including Britain, non-essential international travel is due to resume from Ireland from Monday while thirty-four states have been removed from the Mandatory Hotel Quarantine list.
There are now 29 countries on the list, with the addition of Cuba - starting from 4am on Tuesday.
However, the sharp rise in cases is causing concern and on Saturday former British health secretary Jeremy Hunt warned that prime minister Boris Johnson may be forced to reimpose lockdown restrictions if Covid cases continue rising into the autumn.
Donnelly
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly yesterday warned the Seanad of “roaring” case growth in Ireland. He told The Irish Times that modelling by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) shows “a wide range of cases for the end of July, with the maximum being around 2,000 cases a day”.
Another senior Government source said the threshold of 2,000 cases a day could in fact be breached earlier than the end of the month.
A return to January levels of pressure on healthcare is not countenanced, but political sources are increasingly wary of the impact of infections - especially among the unvaccinated - on hospitals.
If cases hit 2,000 per day, hospital admissions could be in the region of 40 per day, with four to five deaths, Coalition figures believe.
Professor of Experimental Immunology with Trinity College Dublin, Kingston Mills, said he cannot make a proper judgement on the impact this Delta wave is likely to have without knowing the age, health profiles and vaccination status of Covid-19 patients in hospitals and intensive care units.
“If they are younger people in their 30s and 20s then you would be less concerned because they are going to be vaccinated in a few weeks and those numbers then will drop,” he said. The situation would be more “concerning” if the people being hospitalised are older, he added.
The biggest risk to younger cohorts is long Covid, but some of them are in hospital, he said. The number of people aged 13 to 18 who are infected with the virus is “very high” showing there is “significant transmission in adolescents”, he added.
19 to 24 year-olds
According to the latest HSE epidemiology report, this age cohort makes up 15.3 per cent of new cases over the last two weeks, while the 19 to 24 age group represents nearly a quarter.
A fifth of new cases are among those aged between 25 to 34, while just 2.8 per cent are in people aged 64 and older.
It is understood that latest Nphet modelling, which has incorporated the pace at which Delta is surging as well as the impact of vaccination, has shown an improvement in the outcomes associated with worst-case scenarios, but the best case scenario is disimproving.
Mr Donnelly urged people to act in line with public health advice, emphasising the serious risks, especially for the unvaccinated: “It’s time once again to be super careful.”
A Department of Health source said there is “concern but not alarm” at current trends. Mr Donnelly said that possible death rates for just three months range between 335 and 1,760 people.
A further 1,173 infections were reported in the Republic on Friday, with 79 patients in hospital and 23 in intensive care.
In Northern Ireland the Southern Health Trust has suspended visits at hospitals amid the rising number of Covid-19 cases. A further 1,380 people tested positive for coronavirus there on Friday.