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The acting medical director warned that the number of Covid-19 cases in Dublin could double over the next fifteen days, if people do not take immediate action.
Dr Ronan Glynn said that there are now an average of 104 new cases in Dublin every day.
He said there have been 1,055 cases over the past two weeks, meaning the 14-day incidence rate in the capital is now 78 per 100,000 residents.
Dr. Glynn said there have been many clusters of households spread across the city and county, with the vast majority of cases being younger people.
He said that “if nothing changed, we would expect the number of new cases in Dublin to double over the next 14 days.”
However, he said there is now “a window of opportunity for us to control the current trajectory of the disease.”
And the acting CMO called on people living and working in Dublin to “act now to break the chains of transmission” by following public health guidelines.
He said people need to “redouble our efforts to keep ourselves safe” and urged people to “commit to meeting fewer people within their home” and “limit their social contacts as much as possible.”
He also advised people to avoid crowds and “prioritize the people who need to see.”
Read more: Latest coronavirus stories
A direct message to people who live or work in Dublin to explain where we are today and what we can all do to get where we need to be. # COVID-19-19. Your individual actions really matter. They all count. Do they work. #Firm hold [For Closed Captions, select “cc”.] pic.twitter.com/fbZlexdOVl
– Department of Health (@roinnslainte) September 11, 2020
The comments come after the Health Department reported 211 new coronavirus cases and one more death.
It brings the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases to 30,571, with 1,781 deaths associated with the virus.
More than half of the new reported cases are in Dublin, with 121 cases reported there.
Seventeen cases were reported in Louth, ten in Limerick, eight in Cork and seven in Westmeath and Wicklow.
Six of the cases were reported in Laois, along with five in Donegal and Galway.
The remaining 24 cases are in Carlow, Clare, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Meath, Offaly, Roscommon, Tipperary, and Waterford.
73% of the cases involve people under 45 years of age, while 42 of them have been identified as community transmission.
Meanwhile, new restrictions on visitors to Dublin’s nursing homes will be re-imposed from Sunday.
Following new guidelines issued by the Health Department, only one designated visitor per resident will be allowed.
The new restrictions will apply to all long-term residential care facilities in Dublin for the next three weeks.
Meanwhile, the number of people receiving treatment for Covid-19 in hospitals across the country remains stable.
The latest HSE figures show that at 8pm last night, 51 patients were receiving treatment.
Of that number, seven people were in intensive care units.
There were also 119 suspected cases in hospitals, of which five were in the ICU.
In Northern Ireland, 88 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed from tests on 4,691 people.
It brings the total number of cases there to 8,123 since the outbreak began.
No more deaths have been reported.
Figures for the national waiting list now stand at more than 827,485 patients, according to figures released by the National Treatment Purchase Fund.
It means that the numbers increased by more than 8,400 patients at the end of last month, compared to July.
Most patients wait to be seen at an outpatient clinic.
Outpatient clinic numbers are 610,996.
Earlier, the Taoiseach Micheal Martin said there would be “knee-jerk reactions” to the way the government acts on public health councils.
He said a medium-term Covid-19 plan, to be launched early next week, would set a framework for the next six months of life with the virus.
A new oversight group will be established that will involve stakeholders and government departments on how to implement the NPHET councils.
Mr. Martin said this group will “fine tune” the advice and deliver it to the public in a structured way.
Elsewhere, speaking at the Dublin Economics Workshop, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that Ireland may be close to the level “where we can live with the virus.”
He said the overriding imperative now is to keep the virus suppressed to avoid “if possible” a second lockdown.
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