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IRELAND IS WEEKS AWAY from the implementation of the Covid-19 vaccine.
However, public health officials remain concerned about an inevitable spike in cases around Christmas.
Health officials confirmed another 315 Covid-19 cases and 15 more deaths last night.
A total of 227 new cases were confirmed on Wednesday and 215 new cases were confirmed on Tuesday.
That’s a total of 757 cases compared to 822 cases during the same period last week and 830 cases the week before.
Ireland’s breeding number last week was estimated to be between 0.8 and 1. It is now estimated to be closer to 1.
Ireland’s national incidence rate is 79.5 cases per 100,000 population on a 14-day moving average, according to data from the Center for Health Protection Surveillance, compared to 79.7 on this day last week and 105 , 5 the week before.
That’s a 24% drop in the last 14 days, a slower rate of decline of 31% in the previous 14 days.
Ireland’s Covid-19 growth rate is currently static.
“We have the same number of cases per day now as we did two weeks ago,” said NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group Chair Professor Philip Nolan. TheJournal.ie. “We have had the full effect of Level 5 and we are a little higher than we wanted.”
According to Professor Nolan, “what will matter in the coming weeks is our growth rate.”
In a letter to the government in November, NPHET said it will be possible to suppress the spread of the virus with a 21-day intervention, but only if it starts with case numbers close to 400 per day.
However, Medical Director Dr. Tony Holohan cautioned last week that cases are unlikely to drop below 200 per day and said that NPHET’s projection of 300 to 600 cases per day for the second week of January is ” conservative “. It does not take into account the socializing around Christmas.
With that in mind, NPHET modeling projects, a reduction in restrictions from December 18, could lead to an R number of 2 and 800 to 1200 cases per day by the second week of January.
However, the NPHET model is based on a rapid growth rate of 100 cases per day on December 1 that increases to 400 cases per day in January.
The threshold for intervention is now probably higher (600-700 cases per day) as Ireland’s growth rate stops and cases remain at an average of 285 per day.
If cases start to increase, our growth rate will be closely monitored.
As for the 14-day incidence rates in individual counties, these have decreased in recent weeks in line with the number of cases. However, the incidence in certain counties is increasing.
Donegal, which has the highest incidence of Covid-19 in Ireland, had seen its 14-day incidence rate drop from 264.5 cases per 100,000 on Friday, November 20, to 212.3 last Thursday.
It has increased in the last seven days to 226.8 cases per 100,000.
As cases increase in Northern Ireland, cross-border transmission to Donegal is recurring, Professor Nolan said, adding that Donegal accounts for 60% of all cross-border movements.
Kilkenny, which has suffered a large hospital outbreak in recent weeks, has a 14-day incidence rate of 191.5, a 24% increase from last Thursday.
Louth is the third highest county in Ireland with a 14-day incidence rate of 153.6 cases per 100,000. However, that is a 12% decrease from last Thursday.
Counties with the lowest incidence rates include Leitrim (15.6), Westmeath (22.5), and Wexford (24). However, while this is positive, declining incidence rates in these counties have stalled.
Chairman of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group, Professor Philip Nolan.
Source: RollingNews.ie
Comparing Ireland to other European countries, Ireland’s 14-day incidence rate is lower than that of France (230.0), Spain (228.0), the United Kingdom (314.8) and Italy (479.3 ), according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). ).
The countries mentioned, including Ireland, are still considerably lower than Croatia, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1,171.5 cases, and Luxembourg, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1202.2 cases per 100,000.
Testing and tracing
Approximately 116,000 tests were carried out during the 7 days until Thursday October 22, when Ireland entered level 5. The positivity rate was 6.9%.
Approximately 103,000 tests were carried out in the 7 days until October 29 and 88,547 tests were carried out in the seven days until Thursday, November 5.
Three weeks in Level 5, 77,718 tests have been carried out in the seven days until November 12, 77,292 tests have been carried out until November 19 and 77,805 tests have been carried out in the last seven days until last Friday.
So while the number of tests dropped by 33% between Level 5 and the midpoint of Nov. 12, the number of tests each week since then has remained static at around 77,000.
This week, approximately 77,000 tests have been performed in the last seven days.
The positivity rate, which had decreased to 2.7% last week, has dropped to 2.4%, the lowest point since September.
Hospital and ICU
There have been 13 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours and 14 discharges.
There are, as of this morning, 203 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in hospitals and 36 people in Intensive Care Units.
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Last Thursday, there were 234 hospitalized cases of Covid-19 and 32 people in the ICU.
Health officials reported 8 more cases in the ICU in one day on Wednesday, warning that Covid-19 remains an “extremely infectious” virus.
As seen in the graph below, ICU cases have increased dramatically in recent days.
Source: Department of Health
Clusters and shoots
Last week saw a significant reduction in the number of outbreaks in households, a key indicator as Level 5 restrictions were introduced and one that will be closely monitored before Christmas.
There were 262 new outbreaks in private homes as of Saturday 28 November, a 60% decrease from the previous week, bringing the total number of outbreaks in this environment to 7,123 since the pandemic hit Ireland.
In a sign that viral transmission is neither increasing nor decreasing, there were 288 new outbreaks in private homes as of last Saturday.
Of these, 4,744 remain open.
Source: HPSC
Outbreaks in schools have also been stable since last week.
There were 14 outbreaks reported by the HPSC as of Saturday. Twelve outbreaks were reported in the previous 7 days.
However, HPSC notes: “These outbreaks are outbreaks associated with school-age children + / or school personnel. Transmission of Covid-19 within the school has not necessarily been established in these outbreaks. ”
The total number of outbreaks since the start of the pandemic is 9,746. Of these, 5,424 remain “open” according to recent HPSC data.
For an outbreak to be considered “closed,” 28 days must elapse after the last case was diagnosed or became symptomatic.
There have also been 8 other outbreaks in work settings, bringing the number of outbreaks in this environment to 29 between November 28 and today.
Finally, there have been 5 new outbreaks in nursing homes – 32 outbreaks in nursing homes remain “open”.
Between November 28 and last Saturday, the number of outbreaks in all settings had decreased by just 1.1%.
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