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THE SCHOOLS were forced to keep students away to allow crowds to disperse after hundreds of people attended a funeral today.
Under current Covid-19 guidelines, only 25 people can attend funeral services.
Several hundred mourners attended Ballon Cemetery in Co Carlow, in defiance of Level 5 restrictions.
Parents were asked to be especially careful when picking up their children from Ballon National School as a result of the crowd.
Cars parked on both sides of the road caused traffic jams in the area.
INCIDENCE RATE
Carlow’s 14-day incidence rate is now 217.8 per 100,000 population.
Ireland’s 14-day Covid-19 incidence rate has dropped to 202.1, and figures show a massive drop in local virus rates in the last week.
Galway City’s Covid-19 rate has similarly dropped from 505 to 513 per 100,000 of the population, followed by Ashbourne in Meath, which has dropped from 385 to 502 per 100,000.
Despite substantial declines, Covid-19 incidence rates remain at 400 in Ballina, Maynooth, Sligo, Athlone, and Cavan-Belturbet.
The Dingle Peninsula, Co Kerry or Corca Dhuibhne, has the lowest Covid-19 rate in Ireland, so low that it cannot be accurately recorded and is recorded as less than five per 100,000.
‘ON TIME’
Meanwhile, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has hailed the “positive signs” in the fight against coronavirus by confirming that Ireland’s breeding number has crucially fallen below 1.
The spread of the virus is starting to slow down with the R number (R0) now between 0.7 and 0.9 as strict lockdown restrictions begin to take effect.
Trinity College Kingston Mills Professor of Experimental Immunology said Ireland is on track to break out of the December lockdown.
Speaking at the Newstalk breakfast, he said: “In fact, we are doing better than most of the countries in Europe now, I think there are only five countries better than us in terms of numbers per 100,000, which is a critical statistic.
“The big problem is whether it can be reduced even further, we still have hundreds of cases a day, which is not what you like to see.
“We’d like to get back to where we were in July with R numbers, but hopefully we’ll make it. Some of the Level 5 restrictions are already having an impact, because we’re seeing it across the country, a reduction.” “
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