Covid-19 Thursday: 2 deaths, 591 new cases

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 3 additional deaths related to Covid-19.

There has been a total of 1,933 Covid-19-related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight Wednesday 4th November, the HPSC has been notified of 591 confirmed cases of Covid-19. There is now a total of 64,046* confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today:

• 280 are men / 310 are women
• 59% are under 45 years of age
• The median age is 38 years old
• 120 in Dublin, 75 in Donegal, 50 in Cork, 46 in Kerry, 44 in Limerick and the remaining 256 cases are spread across 20 other counties.

As of 2pm today 302 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 38 are in ICU. 20 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Dr Tony Holohan, chief medical officer, Department of Health, said: ‘A second surge is taking place across Europe. Ireland and Finland are the only European countries in the EU where reductions in 14 – day incidence have been observed. All other countries are increasing.

‘Level 5 efforts over the last two weeks have succeeded in further reducing community transmission and disease incidence in Ireland, however, now is not the time to be complacent. We must keep driving down this disease- we must keep going.

‘The 19 to 24 year old age group has achieved a dramatic reduction in incidence, from 450 per 100,000 to 150 per 100,000 in two weeks. They have also halved their contacts in the past 5 weeks. We all need to recognise the efforts of our young people and I thank them.’

Professor Philip Nolan, chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said: ‘We estimate the reproduction number at 0.7 - 0.9. This is a testament to our collective effort to stop the spread of the virus and it is very good news. We may be doing better now but it is conditional on whether we keep it up. If we continue to use this time to drive the infection right down, we will be in a good position in four weeks’ time.’

Dr Vida Hamilton, national clinical advisor and group lead, acute hospitals, HSE added: ‘While the age demographic of cases vary from the first surge back in March to this one, ICU admissions have affected people from all age groups, with the average length of stay at 17.8 days. People of all ages are potentially vulnerable to the more extreme symptoms of this disease.’

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of Covid-19 in the community.

*Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 28 confirmed cases. The figure of 64,046 confirmed cases reflects this.

Today’s cases, 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and new cases in last 14 days (as of midnight 04 November 2020) (incidence rate based on Census 2016 county population)

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