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Five people died from Covid-19 and the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) confirmed 248 more cases in the state on Saturday.
Dublin has the highest number of cases with 104. Donegal has 37, Cork has 36, Kildare and Westmeath have eight cases. There were six cases in Kilkenny, Laois and Offaly, five in Longford, Monaghan and Wexford, and the remaining 22 cases are in 11 other counties.
A total of 34,560 cases of the virus have been confirmed in Ireland since the end of February and the total number of deaths is now 1,802.
Of the cases reported today, 132 are men and 115 are women. 67% are under 45 years old. 36 percent have been confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or in close contact with a confirmed case. Thirty-six cases have been identified as community transmission.
Earlier on Saturday, the chairman of the Covid-19 expert advisory group of the National Public Health Emergency Team warned that there is “no magic bullet” in the next six months in relation to the coronavirus.
Dr Cillian de Gascun, also director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, said it is difficult to predict when a vaccine will be available, adding that “no one can be certain.”
“If we have a vaccine that is in place and that we can implement, say in mid-2021, and have it by next winter [2021], I think it would really be a positive step, ”he told RTÉ on Saturday with Katie Hannon.
“Realistically, we are going through this winter with our current non-pharmaceutical interventions and our current public health messages and that is why it is so important that people continue to support us and stick with this because there will be no magic bullet in the next six months. “
Dr. de Gascun said that work is being done to increase the virus testing capacity in the country. Demand for tests increased significantly when schools returned in September, he said, with more than 15,000 referrals a day.
He said that demand for schools had “stagnated and stabilized,” but that these data [of 15,000 daily referrals] “It feeds off the system and makes you realize that capacity is not enough, so there is work in progress to develop, to bring that capacity to where it needs to be.”
“What we want to do from a test perspective is that we want to be able to meet the demand that exists. There has been a great fixation on numbers, which I can understand, but it’s probably not helpful, ”he added. “Ultimately, we want to have the ability to assess everyone who needs to be assessed.”
Dr. de Gascun said that “nothing is inevitable” in relation to the additional restrictions for other parts of the country, but acknowledged that there are “worrying trends”, including an increase in cases, an increase in the incidence rate of 7 and 14 days too. such as the number of people hospitalized and in intensive care with the virus.
“These are all worrying signs and we are obviously not in the middle of winter yet, so we are concerned that if we get into a bad place now, it will be very difficult to get out of it in winter.
He said it was important “from an NPHET perspective that we act early, that we act proportionate.”
But it’s really important that the other counties don’t look at Donegal and Dublin and think ‘well we’re fine so we don’t have any concerns,’ “he said. Dr de Gascun said he did not want to predict whether the Level 3 restrictions would be extended in Dublin within two weeks, but that the message to the public would not change.
“We can control this, we control this in the past and we can control this again, but we have to behave differently,” he said.
He stressed that people can transmit the virus before they begin to show symptoms or even if they do not have any symptoms.
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