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There have been another 3,394 cases of Covid-19 in the Republic of Ireland along with four more deaths, the Department of Health confirmed today.
This brings the total number of cases in the country to 96,926.
Since the start of the pandemic, 2,252 Covid-19-related deaths have been recorded in the state.
Of the cases reported today, 389 are in Cork, 355 in Dublin, 339 in Donegal, 258 in Louth, 233 in May, and the remaining 1,820 cases are spread across all other counties.
As of 2:00 p.m. today, 607 patients are hospitalized, of which 56 are in the ICU. There have been 71 additional hospitalizations in the last 24 hours.
Dr. Tony Holohan, Medical Director of the Department of Health, said; “The incidence of COVID-19 is just as high, if not higher now than it was in March. Each individual needs to act like they are contagious. Hospitalizations are increasing to levels close to what we saw in the spring. Everyone needs to stay home, except for essential jobs or care.
“It is really important that the elderly and vulnerable do not leave their homes unless absolutely necessary. This includes asking neighbors or family members to run errands like grocery shopping, limiting all contacts to only those people you live with or have to visit for essential care reasons.
“We need to rediscover the spirit of solidarity and community that we saw in March and April so that we can all do our part in protecting the elderly and vulnerable.
“People particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 include the elderly and people with pre-existing medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and cancer.”
Northern Ireland also recorded another 3,576 coronavirus cases in the past 48 hours.
Another 26 people have died with Covid-19, the Health Department said.
Professor Philip Nolan, chair of Nphet’s Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group, said that Ireland is on “a very significant increase” and for the number of cases to decrease, the country must “fully enter the spirit of the measures introduced by the government”.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Saturday with Katie Hannon, said that up to 6,000 cases per day could be seen at the peak of this third wave, but, if the reproduction numbers are “substantially” below one, numbers of less than 1,000 cases per day could be seen by the end of January. .
Nphet’s model did not project the number of cases the country is seeing at the beginning of the month. When asked if the modeling system should be revised, Professor Nolan said that “exponential growth is notoriously difficult to predict accurately.”
He added that it only requires a “marginal” change in the levels of social contact for the difference between 2,000 cases a day and 4,000.
“The bottom line here is that whether we face 2,000 cases a day or 4,000 cases a day, that’s too many,” he said.
“It is more than our health systems or monitoring systems can cope with and requires the kind of decisions the government has made in recent days for the complete suppression of the virus.”
When asked about the new strain of Covid-19 in the UK, which Dr Cillian De Gascun does not believe is responsible for the recent spike in numbers, Professor Nolan said it is “too early to be definitive” .
“It is too early to be completely definitive on the role of the new variant as we only have limited data. The important thing to keep in mind is that it is a threat, we know it is here in Ireland,” he said.
However, he said: “We saw an even more intense level of socialization during Christmas than we could have expected and that is what brings us to the very precarious position we are in now.”
Dr. Cillian De Gascun, Director of the UCD National Virus Reference Laboratory, said yesterday that a small number of samples were analyzed for the new variant between December 23 and 29.
Nine new cases of the new strain were detected. Of the 169 samples detected for this new strain to date, 16 have been confirmed, and therefore Dr. De Gascun said that he does not believe this new strain is responsible for the “recent significant and worrying increase” in cases of Covid-19.
Online editors
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