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The Health Department announced that 77 other people who had been diagnosed with Covid-19 died, bringing the total deaths in Ireland to 687.
An additional 401 cases of the coronavirus have also been confirmed in the Republic, bringing the total number of cases here to 15,652.
Of the additional deaths announced today, 67 were in the east of the country, four in the west, four in the northwest and two in the south of the country.
In a daily briefing at the Health Department, Medical Director Dr. Tony Holohan said that of the latest deaths there were 31 men, 42 women and in four of the cases gender has not been reported.
The average age of deaths reported today is 84 years.
The briefing also heard that 54 of the cases had underlying health conditions.
In relation to the 687 people who died in the Republic due to the coronavirus, 51% were hospitalized and 7% were admitted to the ICU.
55% of deaths were men, 45% were women.
The Health Department Head of Social Care, Dr. Kathleen MacLellan, says there are now 1,761 cases of Covid-19 in long-term residential settings and 1,204 cases in nursing homes.
She said 406 of the recorded deaths have been in long-term settings, 337 of them in nursing homes.
She said that of the total deaths in residential settings, 329 have been laboratory-confirmed, while 77 were listed as probable or suspected cases.
Of the deaths in nursing homes, 276 were laboratory confirmed, while 61 were suspected.
Dr. MacLellan said that a death census from deaths in these settings began over the weekend and the department hopes to have more information on this later in the week to help direct public health and clinical action.
In Northern Ireland, 13 more people have died in the hospital from Covid-19.
In total, 207 hospital deaths have been reported in relation to the coronavirus.
Northern Ireland’s projected death rate from the coronavirus in the first 20 weeks of the pandemic has been revised to 1,500, down from the 15,000 death projections made in early March.
About 80% of Covid-19 cases will be mild to moderate disease, about 14% have severe disease, and about 6% are critical.
In general, you must be 15 minutes or closer to and less than two meters from an infected person, to be considered at risk or close contact.
Too soon to see clear trends as restrictions to stay
Today, the highest number of deaths has been reported by the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) in a single day during the coronavirus emergency.
Of the 77 Covid-19 related deaths, 54 people had an underlying disease. These are very sad figures: each patient is likely to have a family, loved ones, and friends.
It is important to note that these deaths may have occurred in the past few days and are not reported in real time. They did not occur in one day. But that does not lessen the great sadness associated with such loss. The median age of deaths is 84 years, which underlies how the virus is so dangerous to older people.
The number of new cases reported today was 401, a decrease in recent days.
One of the reasons for this is because there are no test result figures to be included in the German lab, as the delay has been cleared. With that in mind, and since the German evidence was older evidence, there is some positive news in lowering case levels.
But it is too early to be definitive on a clear trend.
It may be hard to believe, but it is still fairly early in the progress of the virus here. There will be a peak of some kind, by definition there has to be a higher figure, but it doesn’t seem likely that it will be close to some previous projections.
In addition, the public hospital system can currently manage existing cases, with more than 2,000 empty beds and 142 critical care beds free of charge. But this is a dynamic situation, always changing. The capacity of a private hospital has hardly been necessary.
NPHET will meet tomorrow to review all trends. It will also consider existing restrictions as well as possible childcare supports for health personnel, an initiative long promised by the Government.
As of now, there are no early signs that existing Covid-19 restrictions will be lifted soon. Swab sampling, processing and testing capabilities, contact tracing, and rapid response of results will all be essential before relaxation of measurements is contemplated.
While there may be some limited relief measures from certain measures, the message from health officials is that serious steps for society still need to be taken to keep the reinfection rate below 1.
Earlier today, the Taoiseach said it does not want to raise hopes or expectations by speculating on when schools might reopen.
Leo Varadkar said the government was ready to reopen the schools in the early stages of easing the restrictions, but since the plan to do so had not been completed, he did not want to speculate.
Elsewhere, a researcher in theoretical neurobiology has said that “without a new approach” we can see many more Covid-19 cycles.
Dr. Rosalyn Moran of King’s College London said that current restrictions have given us a breather to bring infection levels to a manageable level and if we keep our breeding cases below one, this cycle should end in the middle June, with hundreds of manageable cases by the end of May.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke, Dr. Moran said that according to her models, there could be some 1,200 deaths in Ireland at the end of this cycle.
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More than a million now depends on state revenue
More than a million people now depend totally or partially on the state to receive income, according to the latest figures from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection.
584,000 people are now receiving the Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment introduced just over a month ago.
The latest figures indicate that 50,000 of them are receiving the € 350 payment for the first time this week.
Payments will be made to your bank accounts or your local post office tomorrow.
Those numbers add to the 212,000 on the live record who receive the standard job seeker benefit of € 203 per week.
In total, 796,000 people depend entirely on the State for their income.
The figure at the end of February was 182,000, which means that unemployment has more than quadrupled in seven weeks.
Separately, 46,000 employers have registered with the Income Commissioners for the Temporary Salary Subsidy Plan (TWSS), which subsidizes the payment of 281,200 employees.
When the Covid-19 Pandemic Payment, Job Applicant, and TWSS payments are added together, 1,077,200 people now depend wholly or in part on the State for income.
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