4 deaths and a record 3,394 new confirmed cases

HEALTH OFFICIALS HAVE confirmed 3,394 additional cases of Covid-19 in Ireland today.

In a statement, the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) also confirmed 4 more deaths from Covid-19.

This brings the death toll to 2,252, with a total of 96,926 Covid-19 cases reported in Ireland since the pandemic began.

Of the cases reported today:

• 1,619 are men / 1,766 are women
• 65% are under 45
• The average age is 35 years.
• 389 in Cork, 355 in Dublin, 339 in Donegal, 258 in Louth, 233 in May and the remaining 1,820 cases are distributed in all other counties.

At 2pm this afternoon, there are 607 Covid-19 patients in the hospital, of which 56 are in the ICU. There have been 71 hospitalizations in the last 24 hours.

The 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population is now 381.6.

Medical Director Dr. Tony Holohan said: “The incidence of COVID-19 is just as high, if not higher now than it was in March. Each individual needs to act like they are contagious. Hospitalizations are increasing to levels close to what we saw in the spring. Everyone needs to stay home, except for essential jobs or care.

“It is really important that the elderly and vulnerable do not leave their homes unless absolutely necessary. This includes asking neighbors or family members to run errands like grocery shopping, limiting all contacts to only those people you live with or have to visit for essential care reasons.

“We need to rediscover the spirit of solidarity and community that we saw in March and April so that we can all do our part in protecting the elderly and vulnerable.

“People particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 include the elderly and people with pre-existing medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and cancer.”

The Health Department has also released a table to show both positive tests and confirmed cases during the last 14 days.

Typically, the number of confirmed cases would be correlated with the number of positive tests the day before to allow for verification and removal of duplicates.

Source: Department of Health

Until any delays that have arisen are resolved, lab test results will no longer be reported.

Speaking earlier today on RTÉ Radio One, chairman of Ireland’s Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group, Professor Philip Nolan said he expects the delay issue to be resolved within the next week.

“At the rate these colleagues are managing to do this, we expect the issue to be resolved within five to seven days.”

An HSE spokesperson has said the delay was due to high volumes of test data being uploaded to the Computerized Infectious Disease Reporting (CIDR) system.

“We have started to implement a plan to solve this problem and our goal is to have the CIDR system operating at a normal level of performance as soon as possible,” the spokesperson said.