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The Health Department confirmed today another 23 deaths related to Covid-19 and 1,378 more cases.
This brings the total number of coronavirus-related deaths in the state to 2,970 and the total number of cases to 187,554.
The 23 deaths reported today occurred in January.
The average age of those who died is 84 years and the age range is 61 to 99 years.
As of 2:00 p.m. today, 1,931 Covid-19 patients are hospitalized, of which 218 are in the ICU. There have been 44 additional hospitalizations in the last 24 hours.
Of the cases reported today, 379 are in Dublin, 145 in Cork, 86 in Wexford, 85 in Galway, 71 in Limerick, and the remaining 612 cases are spread across all other counties.
Dr. Tony Holohan, Medical Director, said that this is a critical time for the public to stand firm on public health councils.
“We must not lower our guard against this highly infectious disease and the risk it poses to us and those most medically vulnerable to infection,” he said.
“There is a large volume of disease in the country and the recent increase in cases continues to put unprecedented pressure on ICUs, hospitals and other front-line healthcare services. The answer is to reduce social contact and congregation in all settings, including workplaces.
“Anyone who can should work from home whenever possible. For those of us who cannot work from home, it is critical to follow public health advice in the workplace, such as wearing face covers when moving around common areas.
“We urge all employers to make working from home as easy as possible and to ensure strict adherence to public health measures in the workplace.”
HSE CEO Paul Reid said today that he is “very anxious” for close contact tracing to return, but that cases should be below 2,000 for several days.
Reid also said that rejections from vaccine providers will appear in the remaining fight against Covid-19.
Yesterday, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said the news that AstraZeneca told the EU that it will receive a reduced number of vaccines for February and March is “a real setback”.
Prior to this, Minister Donnelly said that any adult who wants vaccination in Ireland must have it before September this year.
Reid said any announcement about when everyone will receive the vaccine must be “qualified based on delivery and getting guarantees on scheduled delivery.”
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s This week About AstraZeneca supplying fewer vaccines than expected, he said: “Personally, I think this is going to be a feature of the supply problem with the various providers, that we will have setbacks and setbacks.”
However, he said that despite this news, he has been assured that a scheduled delivery of AstraZeneca will arrive in February and that the start of the administration of the vaccine for those over 70 will begin in the middle of the month.
The HSE chief added: “We are not very sure of the impacts beyond that in terms of how long it will take us to complete that.”
He said that similarly, when Pfizer’s supply was cut off, it raised very serious concerns in the EU and the government, and that a “very strong conversation” is expected to occur this week to assess the impacts.
He added: “There are a variety of other vendors that we want to see coming after the EMA approval that will provide us with more contingency planning, but right now where we only have the supply from pfizer, hopefully Moderna and now and hopefully the AstraZeneca.
“But there is that level of unpredictability right now, across Europe in particular.”
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