Covid-19 Thursday: 47 deaths, 1,466 new cases

THE Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 47 additional deaths related to Covid-19.

Of these deaths, 46 occurred in January.

The median age of those who died is 85 years and the age range is 55-99 years.

There has been a total of 3,167 Covid-19-related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight, Wednesday 27th January, the HPSC has been notified of 1,466 confirmed cases of Covid-19. There is now a total of 192,645* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today:

• 697 are men / 764 are women
• 55% are under 45 years of age
• The median age is 41 years old
• 472 in Dublin, 106 in Galway, 103 in Cork, 77 in Waterford, 70 in Limerick and the remaining 638 cases are spread across all other counties**

As of 2pm today, 1,567 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 216 are in ICU. There were 69 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Dr Tony Holohan, chief medical officer, Department of Health, said: ‘Incidence is falling but remains high. It is positive to see numbers of people hospitalised reducing and a stabilisation of numbers in ICU.

‘However, we are continuing to experience high mortality with 878 deaths so far in January. I am concerned about the high incidence we are seeing in long-term care settings and vulnerable groups. Our efforts to stay home and break transmission of the disease will save lives. Please continue to follow the public health advice and support each other to keep going.’

Professor Philip Nolan, chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said: ‘Incidence is falling and by working collectively to reduce contacts, we have achieved suppression of transmission with the R number estimated at 0.4-0.7. We are maintaining an extraordinary effort but still we have a long way to go. We must maintain full suppression for several weeks if we are to achieve strategic options for the future. If we keep this up, we would be down to 200-400 cases per day by the end of February.’

Dr Lorraine Doherty, national clinical director health protection HSE – Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), said: ‘It only takes one event to spark a chain of transmission of COVID-19 that can spread through a community. We have seen examples of outbreaks in a workplace that has led to multiple outbreaks in families and other work settings, and these ultimately lead to a higher incidence in the community and threatens the most vulnerable to COVID-19. Every action an individual takes matters.’

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 3 confirmed cases. The figure of 192,645 confirmed cases reflects this.

**County data should be considered provisional as the national Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting System (CIDR) is a dynamic system and case details are continually being validated and updated.

• 7 Day Incidence is 225.8
• 5-day moving average is 1,294

Today’s cases, 5-day moving average of new cases, 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and new cases in last 14 days (as of midnight 27 January 2021) (incidence rate based on Census 2016 county population)

~The 5-day moving average of the number of new cases provides an appropriate indicator of current daily case numbers within a county. It takes account of any validation of cases for previous days and smooths out daily/weekend fluctuations in case numbers.