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Health officials announced 217 confirmed cases of COVID-19 tonight, the highest daily figure since May.
It brings the national total to 29,025.
No new deaths have been reported and the death toll remains at 1,777.
About 103 of the new cases are in Dublin, with 25 in Kildare, 17 in Limerick, seven in Waterford, seven in Wicklow, six in Clare, five in Louth and the rest in Carlow, Cavan, Cork, Donegal, Galway, Kilkenny . , Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Westmeath and Wexford.
Acting Medical Director Dr. Ronan Glynn said 19 of the cases have been identified as community transmission, while more than half are associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a previously confirmed case.
“While the number of cases today is the highest daily figure reported since May, the five-day moving average remains relatively stable at 115 cases per day,” said Dr. Glynn.
“However, this is still a considerable number of cases and I urge everyone to redouble their efforts now: wash your hands regularly, physically move away from others, wear face covers when appropriate, avoid crowded areas, know the symptoms, isolate yourself and contact your GP if you have any concerns.
“Keep reducing your social contacts so the virus doesn’t have a chance to spread further.”
Concern
Meanwhile, Anthony Staines, professor of health systems at DCU, said Newstalk that reducing the numbers should not be an impossible task.
“It is certainly cause for concern, but not cause for widespread alarm and unease,” he said.
“We have had a greater number of cases than this before and we have managed to reduce it. We managed to reduce the number of cases in Kildare, we managed to reduce the number of cases in Laois and Offaly and I believe that we can reduce the number of cases nationally. “
Optimism
He said that people across Ireland have made significant changes in response to the virus and there is still reason for optimism.
“A lot of people are distancing themselves socially, so it keeps the spread low,” he said.
“People wash their hands; people wear masks, all of this reduces the spread.
“The track and trace is much better than it was. You have several cases and perhaps in March they would have resulted in 50 more cases; now they could lead to ten more cases and it all adds up. “
At 8 a.m. this morning, there were 36 confirmed cases of the virus in Irish hospitals and six patients in intensive care.
Of the 62,056 tests carried out in the last seven days, 1.2% were positive.
Approximately 70% of the new cases were in patients younger than 45 years.
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