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LEVEL 5 has been in effect throughout Ireland for a week.
Public health officials will closely monitor the spread of Covid-19 over the next several weeks, as movement restrictions are expected to limit the spread of the virus and reduce community transmission.
Health officials confirmed 866 more cases of Covid-19 and six deaths tonight.
A total of 675 new cases were confirmed on Wednesday and 720 new cases were confirmed on Tuesday.
That’s a total of 2,261 compared to 3,502 cases during the same period last week.
Ireland’s breeding number last week was estimated between 1.3 and 1.4 and early indications show that it has fallen again.
Medical director Dr. Tony Holohan has said that a reproductive number of 0.5 would be a sufficient level of transmission to get out of strict restrictions.
The figures seem positive. However, public health officials have warned that it is too early to say if any trends have been established.
Ireland’s national incidence rate is 292.1 cases per 100,000 population on a 14-day moving average, according to data from the Center for Health Protection Surveillance, compared to 302.49 this day last week .
Source: HPSC
The incidence rate in individual counties has skyrocketed in recent weeks, but has mostly declined in the past 7 days.
Cavan’s incidence rate is now estimated at 753.5 cases per 100,000, according to the Department of Health.
Last week it was 1,055.5 cases per 100,000, the highest level any county has reached so far.
Meath remains the second highest in Ireland with a 14-day incidence rate of 561.9 cases per 100,000, compared to 659.9 cases last Thursday.
The next highest is Westmeath, with 404.4 cases per 100,000, compared to 417.9 cases last week.
Counties with the lowest incidence rate include Tipperary (145.5), Wicklow (148.1), and Kilkenny (170.3)
Compared to Europe, Ireland’s 14-day incidence rate is lower than that of France (680.6), Spain (486.7), the United Kingdom (431.6), and Italy (359.5), according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
Source: ECDC
The countries mentioned, including Ireland, are still considerably lower than Belgium, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1,498.7, and the Czech Republic, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1,481.0 per 100,000.
For more information on how European countries are dealing with a second wave of Covid-19, see here.
Testing and tracing
After a difficult week for the HSE, which was forced to halt its contact tracing operation for 2,000 positive cases last week, referrals for testing have dropped.
Speaking yesterday at the Oireachtas Health Committee, Niamh O’Beirne, National Lead for Testing and Tracing, said last week’s decision was made to ensure that each person was informed “as quickly as possible” and to allow them to be ” aware of their condition and take steps to take care of themselves and protect others from infection.
“While this was clearly not ideal and we appreciated the impact on those affected, it was seen as the only viable option to treat the most recent cases quickly and restore the system,” he said.
“We apologize to the 1,971 people affected and this week we will call all the people we lost to verify that they were able to identify contacts and advise them to get tested,” O’Beirne said.
The figures for this week, meanwhile, show a reduction in the number of tests that are being carried out.
Approximately 116,000 tests were carried out during the 7 days until last Thursday. The positivity rate was 6.9%, an increase of 0.4% from the previous week.
Approximately 106,000 tests have been performed in the last 7 days. The positivity rate is now estimated at 5.6%, a decrease from 6.9% last week.
It’s worth noting that only 11,435 tests were conducted on Monday, a bank holiday, compared to the previous six days when an average of 16,700 tests were performed per day, slightly skewing the figures.
The HSE also confirmed TheJournal.ie that referrals for testing were down 15% on Tuesday compared to the previous week.
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Hospital and ICU capacity
There have been 26 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours and 36 discharges.
As of this morning, there are 330 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in hospitals and 43 people in Intensive Care Units at 8 a.m.
Last Thursday, there were 311 hospitalized cases of Covid-19 and 37 people in the ICU.
Source: Department of Health
Sprouts and clusters
Source: HPSC
There has been a further increase in the number of outbreaks in schools since the HPSC was released last week.
Outside of private homes, there are now more groups in schools than in any other setting, with a further 46 new outbreaks in the week through last Friday.
However, HPSC notes: “These outbreaks are outbreaks associated with school-age children + / or school personnel. Transmission of Covid-19 within the school has not necessarily been established in these outbreaks. “
The total number of outbreaks since the start of the pandemic is 6,228. Of these, 3,545 remain “open” according to recent HPSC data.
For an outbreak to be considered “closed,” 28 days must elapse after the last case was diagnosed or became symptomatic.
There were 521 new outbreaks in private homes confirmed as of last Friday, an increase of 60 from the previous week, bringing the total number of outbreaks in this setting to 4,498 since the pandemic hit Ireland.
Of these, 2,816 remain open.
Finally, there have been 15 new outbreaks in nursing homes – 51 outbreaks in nursing homes remain “open”.
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