[ad_1]
TWO WEEKS AT Level 5, did we turn a corner? The latest Covid-19 data suggests we have.
Health officials confirmed 591 more cases of Covid-19 and three more deaths tonight.
A total of 444 new cases were confirmed on Wednesday and 322 new cases were confirmed on Tuesday.
That’s a total of 1,357 cases compared to 2,261 cases during the same period last week and 3,502 cases the week before.
Ireland’s breeding number last week was estimated to be around 1, having been between 1.3 and 1.4 the week before. Since then it has fallen further between 0.7 and 0.9.
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.
Ireland’s national incidence rate is 212.7 cases per 100,000 population on a 14-day moving average, according to data from the Center for Health Protection Surveillance, compared to 292.1 on this day last week and 302.9 the week before. That’s a 30% drop in two weeks.
Source: HPSC
The incidence rate in individual counties had skyrocketed in recent weeks, but has mostly dropped in the past seven to 14 days.
Cavan’s incidence rate is now estimated at 364.9 cases per 100,000, according to the Department of Health.
It was 753.5 last week and stood at 1,055.5 cases per 100,000, the highest any county has reached so far, on Thursday, October 22.
That is a significant decrease of 60% in fifteen days.
Meath remains the second highest in Ireland with a 14-day incidence rate of 323.0 cases per 100,000, compared to 561.9 cases last Thursday.
The next highest is Donegal with 286.4 cases per 100,000, compared to 317.2 cases last week.
Counties with the lowest incidence rates include Tipperary (145.4), Wicklow (148.1), and Kilkenny (170.3).
Compared to Europe, Ireland’s 14-day incidence rate is lower than that of France (874.3), Spain (594.7), the United Kingdom (464.9) and Italy (564.5), according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The 14-day incidence rate in each of the aforementioned countries has increased since last Thursday and France has increased by more than 25%.
Source: ECDC
The countries mentioned, including Ireland, are still considerably lower than Belgium, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1,631.1 and the Czech Republic, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1,594.4 per 100,000.
Testing and tracing
It was expected that once the Level 5 restrictions came into effect, the number of tests would gradually decrease as the number of cases was reduced.
Approximately 116,000 tests were carried out during the 7 days until Thursday, October 22. The positivity rate was 6.9%.
Approximately 103,000 tests were conducted in the 7 days through last Thursday.
Two weeks later, approximately 88,547 tests have been performed in the last seven days through yesterday.
The positivity rate is now estimated at 4.6%, a decrease from 5.4% last week.
Hospital and ICU capacity
There have been 19 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours and 33 discharges.
As of this morning, there are 307 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in hospitals and 38 people in Intensive Care Units at 8 a.m. this morning.
No news is bad news
Support the magazine
your contributions help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to you
Support us now
Last Thursday there were 327 hospitalized cases of Covid-19 and 43 people in the ICU.
As seen in the graph below, ICU cases peaked between Saturday and last Monday, but have since returned to the lowest point since October 28.
Source: Department of Health
Sprouts and clusters
Source: HPSC
The recent increase in outbreaks in schools has slowed since last week. However, it is important to note that these data were recorded during the midterm break.
There were 30 outbreaks reported by HPSC as of Saturday, October 31. 46 outbreaks were reported in the previous 7 days.
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 6,703. Of these, 3,993 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 320 new outbreaks in private homes as of last Saturday, a reduction of 201, or 63%, from the previous week, bringing the total number of outbreaks in this setting to 4,815 since the pandemic hit Ireland.
Of these, 3,125 remain open.
Finally, there have been 8 new outbreaks in nursing homes – 56 outbreaks in nursing homes remain “open”.
Overall, across all settings, there has been an overall 26% reduction in outbreaks since October 17.
[ad_2]