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We are seeing progress, but we need to see it sustained, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) said tonight when noting his concerns about the rate of Covid-19 in Dublin and in those over 65.
School-specific public health teams have also been strengthened, a new helpline for school principals launched seven days a week, and a new alert system to help identify and expedite swabs. of students from certain schools through the laboratory testing process has been introduced in an attempt to alleviate concerns in the education sector after the schools reopened after the midterm recess.
The detail came when two additional deaths related to Covid-19 and 767 confirmed cases of the disease were reported last night.
Of the latest reported cases, 355 are men and 411 are women, 68% are under 45 years of age and the mean age was 33, with 321 of the cases in Dublin, 84 in Cork, 47 in Meath, 34 in Limerick, 24 in Roscommon and the remaining 257 cases are spread across all other counties.
Dr. Tony Holohan, CMO, said that thanks to the hard work and “high level of behavior” of people who have taken into account public health advice to limit the transmission of this disease, the numbers are trending down and the positivity rate is declining, but he said there is still a long way to go.
He said the fuller effect of the Level 5 restrictions may emerge later this week, but said it is important for people to stay the course.
“Maintaining this is really difficult and people will seem understandable at the first opportunity to walk away from these measures, but we have to continue to emphasize the importance of maintaining standards of behavior,” he said.
“We still have almost 800 cases today. It remains a very large burden of infection, albeit on a decreasing trajectory. We want to maintain the standard of behavior. “
He said that while the most recent restrictions appear to have the desired impact on the disease, he now has two main sources of concern: rates in Dublin have not decreased to the extent that he would like and there is an increase in incidents of cases in the older than 65 years.
He said the seven-day incidence rate has declined slightly in Dublin, but that daily case rates still hover between 200 and 300 even though Level 3 restrictions were in place before the country moved to Level 5 ago. almost two weeks.
“We would like to see that decrease, but it is a pattern that we have seen in other jurisdictions,” he said.
He also confirmed that travel abroad will be among the items that NPHET will consider in the lead up to Christmas.
It comes as new data showed an increase in death rates in Ireland during the pandemic.
The CSO analyzed thousands of death notices posted on the RIP.ie website and estimated the ‘excess mortality’ from March to September this year at between 876 and 1,192 deaths, with between 876 and 1,192 more people dying during that time period. of which would have died. Was expected.
The CSO looked at the number of deaths in April each year between 2013 and 2017 and found that there was an average of about 2,500 deaths.
But based on his analysis of the RIP.ie date for March and April of this year, the number of death notices increased from 2,861 in March to 3,502 in April; the April figure this year exceeded the average by more than 1,000 deaths.
However, September’s death rate remained largely the same as in previous years, with the CSO analysis showing 2,353 death notices on Rip.ie in September.
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