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Updated 35 minutes ago
WE ARE HALF of Level 5.
This week has been dominated by travel, Christmas, and discussion of lowering restrictions, but what does the latest Covid-19 data tell us about our efforts to suppress the virus?
Health officials confirmed 395 more cases of Covid-19 and one more death Thursday night.
A total of 362 new cases were confirmed on Wednesday and 270 new cases were confirmed on Tuesday.
That’s a total of 1,027 cases compared to 1,357 cases during the same period last week and 2,261 cases the week before.
Ireland’s breeding number last week was estimated between 0.7 and 0.9, having been around 1 the week before. Since then it has dropped further to 0.6.
Medical Director Dr. Tony Holohan has said that a reproductive number of 0.5 over a prolonged period would be a sufficient level of transmission to get out of strict restrictions.
Ireland’s national incidence rate is 135.5 cases per 100,000 population on a 14-day moving average, according to data from the Center for Health Protection Surveillance, compared to 212.7 on this day last week and 292.1 the week before. That’s a drop of more than 50% in two weeks.
Source: HPSC
The incidence rate in individual counties soared in October, but has since dropped further in the past seven to 14 days.
Cavan, who had the highest incidence rate at the beginning of Level 5, now has an estimated 14-day average of 118.1 cases per 100,000, according to the Department of Health.
It was 364.9 last week and stood at 753.5 cases per 100,000 on Thursday, October 29.
That’s a significant 80% decrease over a fortnight.
Donegal, the county with the highest incidence rate in the country, continues to be of concern to health officials.
The county’s 14-day incidence rate is currently 281.4 cases per 100,000, a slight decrease from 286.4 cases per 100,000 last week.
Dr. Holohan said yesterday that local public health teams in Donegal have noticed problematic behaviors with funerals and religious services in the county, but said there is no reason the entire country cannot get past Level 5 on December 1st.
Limerick is now the second highest in Ireland with a 14-day incidence rate of 197.5 cases per 100,000, compared to 227.8 cases last Thursday. It is still a reduction, but not as marked as in other counties.
Counties with the lowest incidence rates include Leitrim (40.6), Wexford (67.5), and Wicklow (71.6).
Compared to Europe, Ireland’s 14-day incidence rate is lower than that of France (940.7), Spain (599.1), the United Kingdom (471.8) and Italy (726.7), according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The 14-day incidence rate in each of the aforementioned countries has increased since last Thursday with Italy jumping by more than 22%.
Source: ECDC
The countries mentioned, including Ireland, are still considerably lower than Belgium, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1,060.4 and the Czech Republic, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1,331.4 per 100,000.
NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group Chair Professor Philip Nolan said TheJournal.ie that if cases continue to decline to the current level, we should see an average of 100 cases per day by December 1st.
“When we informed the government that Level 5 measures were necessary, we really couldn’t be sure that the level of public acceptance would be such that we would get to where we are today,” he said.
“We are in very good condition. People have done everything we could have asked of them in the last three weeks, ”said Nolan. “We are very much on target.”
Testing and tracing
Approximately 116,000 tests were carried out during the 7 days until Thursday October 22, when Ireland entered level 5. The positivity rate was 6.9%.
Approximately 103,000 tests were carried out in the 7 days until October 29 and 88,547 tests have been carried out in the seven days until last Thursday.
This week approximately 77,718 tests have been carried out in the last seven days.
The positivity rate is now estimated at 3.5%, a decrease from 4.6% last week.
Meanwhile, the HSE said yesterday that it will begin investigating where people are infected with Covid-19 as part of a new “retrospective contact tracing” policy.
The goal is to collect additional information on Covid-19 cases labeled ‘community transmission’, where the source of the infection is unknown, and will involve a series of questions to build a more accurate picture of where people contract the virus. .
The HSE has said that it is important to start improving contact tracing while the incidence of disease is low.
Under the new system, when trackers first contact confirmed cases, they will be asked “key questions” about visits to healthcare facilities, visits to friends or family, as well as questions about restaurants, pubs and cinemas. to identify if a particular environment is high risk and requires the intervention of Public Health teams.
People will also be asked questions about visiting special events, including weddings and christenings, up to 14 days before symptoms develop.
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Hospital and ICU
There have been 10 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours and 23 discharges.
There are, as of this morning, 275 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in hospitals and 38 people in Intensive Care Units at 8am this morning.
Last Thursday there were 295 hospitalized cases of Covid-19 and 38 people in the ICU.
As seen in the graph below, ICU cases peaked between Saturday 1 and Monday 3, fell back to the lowest point since October 28 last Thursday, but have since risen again.
Speaking at an HSE briefing yesterday, HSE CEO Paul Reid said that hospitalizations and the number of ICUs are stable, but that the health service had not experienced the reduction it expected.
Source: Department of Health
Clusters
The recent increase in outbreaks in schools has slowed down again since last week.
There were 24 outbreaks reported by the HPSC as of Saturday. 30 outbreaks were reported in the previous 7 days and 56 outbreaks in the previous seven days.
However, HPSC notes: “These outbreaks are outbreaks associated with school-age children + / or school personnel. Transmission of Covid-19 within the school has not necessarily been established in these outbreaks. “
Source: HPSC
The total number of outbreaks since the start of the pandemic is 7,266. Of these, 4,202 remain “open” according to recent HPSC data.
For an outbreak to be considered “closed,” 28 days must elapse after the last case was diagnosed or became symptomatic.
There were 443 new outbreaks in private homes as of last Saturday, an increase of 123 or 27% from the previous week, bringing the total number of outbreaks in this environment to 5,285 since the pandemic hit Ireland.
Of these, 3,428 remain open.
Finally, there have been 3 new outbreaks in nursing homes – 49 outbreaks in nursing homes remain “open”.
Overall, across all settings, there has been an overall 16% reduction in outbreaks since last week.
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