Covid-19 Wednesday: 7 deaths, 418 new cases

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

Of the deaths notified today, five occurred in April, one in February and one in January. The median age of those who died was 82 years and the age range was 67-92 years.

There has been a total of 4,915 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight, Tuesday 4th May, the HPSC has been notified of 418 confirmed cases of Covid-19. There is now a total of 251,087* confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today:

• 199 are men / 214 are women
• 73% are under 45 years of age
• The median age is 30 years old
• 167 in Dublin, 39 in Cork, 32 in Donegal, 29 in Kildare, 22 in Meath and the remaining 129 cases are spread across 20 other counties**.

As of 8am today, 137 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 37 are in ICU. There were 18 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

As of Monday May 3^rd, 1,621,870 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland:

• 1,174,292 people have received their first dose
• 447,578 people have received their second dose

Dr Tony Holohan, chief medical officer, said: ‘As we look forward to the greater reopening of activities and services, our key objective now is to maintain our course in coming weeks and follow the public health advice in our daily activities.

‘When you are planning to meet someone, remember that outdoors is safer for everybody. And when you meet up, stay at a 2m distance, keep to a small group and avoid crowded areas – this will minimise the risk of passing the virus from person to person, driving down the incidence rate and keeping our society open.

‘Throughout this pandemic we have seen outbreaks and clusters of disease as a result of social events such as funerals, wakes and birthday parties. Unfortunately we need to continue to stay vigilant to the infectious nature of this disease and avoid congregating together in large groups. We need all sectors of society to continue to encourage and support the public health messages and to help everyone to stay safe.’

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of Covid-19 in the community including daily data on Ireland’s Covid-19 vaccination programme.

*Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 3 confirmed case. The figure of 251,087 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.

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 4^th May 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.

• 7 day incidence rate is 68
• 5 day moving average 445