Covid ‘volatile’ situation, higher incidence in Offaly

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The Health Department has been notified of 520 more cases of Covid-19, while an additional death has also been recorded.

It brings the total number of Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland to 4,588, with the cumulative number of cases since the start of the pandemic at 231,119.

The number of people hospitalized with the virus is 359, while the number in the ICU has dropped slightly to 81. There were 14 more hospitalizations in the last 24 hours.

Of the current cases, 79% are under 45 years old, with a median age of 28.

Geographically, 242 cases were confirmed in Dublin, 36 in Meath, 30 in Offaly, 29 in Kildare and 25 in Wicklow, with the remaining 158 cases spread across 20 other counties.

As of last Friday, a total of 668,529 doses of Covid-19 vaccine had been administered, of which 181,063 were second doses.

The 14-day incidence of the virus nationwide is now 157.1 per 100,000 people.

The highest incidence counties include Offaly, Longford, Kildare, and Dublin. Counties with the lowest incidence include Leitrim, Kilkenny, Cork, and Kerry.

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Meanwhile, HSE’s director of public health for the Midlands, Dr. Una Fallon, said the high number of cases in Co Offaly is due to an amplification of the number of cases in daycare centers, funerals, factories and other workplaces.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Six One News, he said this happens when people congregate in these settings and results in a clump or outbreak.

Dr. Fallon said that while there have been some cases in meat factories, there are now very good controls in these settings and a public health understanding of how to respond. As a result, the situation in the meat factories is under control. Cases have also been discovered in other types of factories, but they have also been responded to very quickly, he added.

Dr. Fallon said there was a substantial outbreak in a daycare center, but the administration and staff have been working very closely with public health and this situation is now under control. He said the variant first identified in the UK is responsible for many cases now, but the other variants are not of particular concern in Offally and the Midlands at this time.

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Dr. Fallon asked people not to congregate and, in particular, not to congregate indoors during the Easter period.

He said people should risk assessing their own situation by considering, if it was a case, how many close contacts they might have had.

Dr Fallon also said that young people in particular, who have minor symptoms, should contact their GP and arrange a Covid test. Until they receive a result and know that they do not have Covid, they should stay home with their families, he said.

It comes as Northern Ireland recorded its lowest number of new Covid-19 cases in six months.

87 new cases were registered from tests on 1,010 people.

One more death has been registered in the region in the last 24 hours, bringing the official figure to 2,105.

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Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ronan Glynn has said that no outbreak dominates relative to the current number of cases in the Republic.

Speaking during tonight’s briefing, he said public health teams had recently seen outbreaks in students, among the Irish travel community, a small number in schools and some in the meat processing sector.

He also said that given current case numbers, a “search and destroy” approach is unrealistic for public health tracking and tracing.

“While we have cases as high as we do, this ‘search and destroy’ concept, which we would all aspire to, is unrealistic at levels of 500, 600, 700 cases per day. You will not find a country in Europe that you are looking for. and destroying Covid-19 cases and clusters with incidence rates of 150 or 160 per 100,000 y “.

Dr. Glynn told the briefing that, as things are planned, 80% of people will receive their first dose of vaccine in June.

Everyone over 70 and those with underlying conditions will be fully protected by then, he said, adding that the country is expected to have much lower levels of illness.

He said that from that perspective, people can expect a “good summer” based on outdoor activities.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to give people that level of hope and reassurance, although there are uncertainties,” he said.

NPHET Epidemiological Modeling Group Chairman Professor Philip Nolan said they do know where the majority of transmissions occur.

During the week of March 7-13, 60% of the cases arose from close contact transmission, and 24% occurred in the community, he said.

He added: “59% of broadcasts occur in homes. Outside the home, nearly half of broadcasts occur at social gatherings and in the workplace.”

Speaking at tonight’s briefing, Professor Nolan said that NPHET is seeing a stabilization, or possibly the beginning of an increase in the case count, adding that while the pattern was not entirely clear, they will monitor it closely. .

He said they are concerned that the number of people admitted to the hospital per day has remained static at 20-25 for three and a half weeks.

Professor Nolan said that when the infection reaches a home, “attack rates are very high,” adding that up to 33-35% of contacts within a household will subsequently become infected.

He said the current landscape is dominated by a large number of cases within households, and as soon as you enter, it is amplified once or twice by your income in that household.

He said that just under half of outbreaks occur in private homes, about 10% in an extended family, just under 10% in workplaces, 5% in complex community settings, 5% in daycare centers, 5% in schools and approximately. 2.5% of the cases associated with outbreaks in week 10 were associated with religious services.

Professor Nolan said it was “pretty clear” that there is some concern about a “possible increase” in the incidence in children ages 0-12, adding that they need to see how it plays out in the next 10-14 days.

He said he is confident in the level of research that colleagues in public health are doing, adding that when they say there is very low detection and very low probability of transmission within schools, he is not concerned about this.

He said that people should also be aware of all the exposure around schools, such as social interaction around and to and from school.

Dr. Glynn said there are reports from colleagues in public health that some of the problems they are seeing have to do with activities outside of school, such as play dates and family gatherings.

He said this occurs in a limited number of circumstances and that the vast majority of parents and households are doing the right thing.

He said that meat processing plants remain a very high risk of transmission and there are very high levels of disease in the community, adding that sadly, it is inevitable that we will continue to see outbreaks in those settings until most of the workforce is vaccinated.

However, he said the serial testing regimen was not reduced in frequency at the meat processing plants and that they are in the process of implementing antigen testing there as well.

Regarding the different variants of the virus in Ireland, the director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, Dr. Cillian de Gascun, said at the briefing that 26 cases of the strain identified for the first time in South Africa were recorded here, as well as nine cases of the Brazilian variant.



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