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An additional 859 Covid-19 cases and four deaths have been recorded in the state as the Taoiseach warned that there are “bumpy roads” in the fight against the disease.
In a statement Saturday night, the Health Department said a total of 56,108 cases have been recorded in Ireland and 1,882 people have died from the disease.
Of the latest cases, 192 were in Dublin, 148 in Cork, 58 in Donegal, 55 in Galway, 54 in Meath and the remaining 352 were spread across the state’s other 21 counties, the department said.
The median age of those diagnosed with the disease was 35 years, with 441 cases diagnosed in women and 415 in men.
At 2:00 p.m. on Saturday there were 315 people sick with Covid-19 in hospitals, 37 of them in intensive care units. Sixteen people were hospitalized as a result of Covid-19 in the previous 24 hours, the department said.
A total of 14,423 cases have been confirmed in the last 14 days, and the incidence rate of the disease at the national level is 302.9 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
The infection rate is highest in Cavan (981.9 per 100,000), Meath (652.7 per 100,000), and Westmeath (448.3 per 100,000). The rate in Dublin is now 254.1 cases per 100,000 and the lowest rates are in Tipperary (122.8 cases per 100,000 people), Wicklow (143.2 per 100,000) and Kilkenny (180.4 per 100,000).
Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland Department of Health said it was notified of another six Covid-19-related deaths and 923 cases in the previous 24 hours.
‘Bumpy roads ahead’
Earlier, Taoiseach Micheál Martin warned that there are “bumpy roads ahead” for Ireland in the fight against Covid-19.
With the state this week moving to the highest level of restrictions in an effort to contain the disease, Martin said lessons had been learned from the reopening of society and the economy after the first shutdown.
This experience would inform the decisions that will need to be made when it comes to easing restrictions at the end of the six-week period, he said.
“As a country we are getting over this and there are many bumpy roads ahead in relation to Covid-19,” he told the MacGill Summer School, which is being held online this year due to the pandemic.
Mr. Martin accepted that Level 5 restrictions are “very difficult” for people “who are now fatigued, especially after the first lockdown” but added that “that’s the cycle we are in.”
He suggested there is evidence that the Level 3 restrictions had “some controlling influence on the spread of the virus and I think we’ve learned from the first reopening that how we handle the next one will be important.”
“The problem seems to me that at Level 2 a lot of behavior developed that seeded much of the spread of the virus,” he added.
HSE data, obtained by The Irish Times, shows that the average number of contacts who have reported a positive case after testing positive has fallen to an average of three out of five last week and six earlier this month. .
Plan defended
Defending the government’s plan to live with the Covid-19 plan, Martin said some politicians across Europe “thought it was very effective” and “in a way praised it” in their parliaments, “especially in the Dutch parliament.”
Pressed on why the coalition only moved the country to Level 5 two weeks after the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) recommended a shutdown, Martin said time was needed “to prepare the ground for the movement.”
Other issues such as schools, construction and the impact on mental health had to be considered, Olivia O’Leary told interviewer.
Again dismissing calls by some to try to eradicate the virus or let it spread uncontrollably through the population to give so-called herd immunity, Martin said the strategy is to “try to suppress it through human behavior and restrictions “.
The government also had to keep the economy viable and lay the foundations “for the post-Covid recovery,” which it said “is not a minor achievement in itself.”
Speaking earlier at summer school, Professor Adrian Hill, who is working with an Oxford University team looking to develop a vaccine, said he believes “one or two” vaccine candidates are being tested around the world. “They will be shown to work before the end of the year.”
Sobering reality
But he said the “sobering reality” is that a vaccine has never been administered to even 500 million people in a year and that health authorities globally would be trying to do “five times as much” to control the pandemic.
The leading vaccines would likely provide immunity for two to three years, but with some, people may need a “booster” shot every winter, as does the flu vaccine, he suggested.
Professor Hill said governments should also begin to consider developing and stockpiling vaccines against the threat of future pandemics from known viruses that could pass from animals to humans.
He said the World Health Organization had identified 12 of those threats that are “pretty well agreed upon.”
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