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Another 23 people died of Covid-19 in Ireland and 211 new cases were confirmed, said the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET).
The number of new confirmed cases was the lowest reported in more than a month, bringing the state’s total to 21,983 since the coronavirus pandemic began. A total of 1,339 people have died so far after contracting the disease.
Some of the restrictions introduced in response to the pandemic were eased as of today, Health Department medical director Dr. Tony Holohan said “it is crucial that we preserve the progress that our country has made in recent weeks.”
“This is a highly infectious disease. It thrives in crowds. It has the potential to rapidly expand to levels that our health services will have difficulty responding to, ”he said.
“While we plan how to safely get out of recent restrictions, none of us should forget that the virus is still in our community. Those who become infected have the same risk of serious illness as they had at the beginning of this pandemic. “
Authorities said 214,761 tests for the virus have been carried out to date, including 61,707 last week. Of these, 2,280 were positive, giving a positivity rate of 3.7 percent.
“The drop in the positivity rate is a good sign,” said Dr. Cillian De Gascun, chair of the NPHET Expert Advisory Group. “Combined with the high level of testing we are conducting, this gives us confidence that we are on the road to suppressing the disease.”
The laboratory capacity to analyze Covid-19 samples is now 84,000 per week, added Dr. de Gascun. He said that most of the tests done in the community were reversed in two to four days and that there had been a “significant improvement” in performance in the past two weeks.
Intensive care
A breakdown of deaths occurred shows that 46% were in hospitals, including 5% in intensive care units (ICUs). Nearly 86 percent of the deceased had an underlying condition.
Males accounted for 51 percent of deaths and females 49 percent. The median age of death was 84 years and the mean was 82.
The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases associated with healthcare workers is now 6,293.
In total, 370 people have been admitted to the ICU, and 90 are still being treated there. There were fewer than five new intensive care admissions on Tuesday.
There have now been 394 groups of the disease in long-term residential facilities, including 229 in nursing homes. Long-term residential facilities represent 5,174 cases, 89 more in one day; with 4,108 of these in nursing homes, 59 more.
Formerly Minister of Social Protection Regina Doherty warned that the current level of payments being made to people who have lost all or part of their income due to coronavirus restrictions would be unsustainable in the long term.
There are now 598,000 people receiving the special Covid-19 unemployment payment, an increase of about 7,000 in the past week. The department said this was above approximately 205,000 on the live record when receiving the job seeker benefit.
In addition, workers in 52,000 companies or businesses have their pay fully or partially financed under the government’s Covid-19 temporary wage subsidy scheme. It is understood that around 427,000 workers who have received at least one subsidized payment. This means that there are approximately 1.23 million workers who depend on state support for all or part of their income.
Construction workers
Doherty told RTÉ radio Morning Ireland that he expected all construction workers to exit the Covid-19 pandemic Unemployment Pay and return to work in the coming weeks, when some 78,000 people withdrew from the registry. Live.
“We will continue to care for people long after this pandemic ends,” he said.
“We are determined that this short-term health crisis will not be economic in the long term for all those workers and families who have been affected.”
He said the government package of € 6.5 billion to support businesses was an acknowledgment of the need for assistance, he said. Only part of the package will require legislation that would take weeks, which is why government formation negotiations were important.
The latest figures on state finances, released on Tuesday, forecast that the coronavirus crisis will cause the tax to decrease by about 14 billion euros this year.
The loss of income will be felt more intensely through income tax and VAT channels because there are fewer people working and less money spent on goods and services.
People over 70 who are coming out of cocooning have been advised not to stop and talk to friends or neighbors when they exercise under the new 5km rule that went into effect today.
At the Government’s Covid-19 briefing, Deputy Secretary General of the Taosieach Department, Liz Canavan, said the key message for those over 70 was “to avoid all contact with other people, to maintain a policy of not touching and washing. your hands when you go home. “
Avoid shops
“It is still recommended that people who are hiding avoid shops,” he said.
Ms Canavan said the roadmap for the reopening of Ireland, which was published last Friday, was a “flexible framework based on a risk assessment”.
She said it is a gradual, step-based plan to reopen the Irish economy and society after the shutdown, but that it will be “totally dependent on our success in slowing the virus down.”
Tánaiste Simon Coveney previously denied that there is tension between the Government and the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet).
In response to media reports on the issues between the two, Mr. Coveney told RTÉ Today radio with Séan O’Rourke “it just isn’t true, it doesn’t mean we didn’t debate the issues.” Nphet has a job to do and that is to offer the best advice. ”
NPHET met Tuesday morning to discuss the situation with the coronavirus.
New figures from An Garda Síochána show that the number of people arrested by Gardaí, or who initiated criminal proceedings against him, for violating the 2 km Covid-19 restriction increased significantly last week.
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