Coronavirus: 11 More Deaths Confirmed

News updates for Friday 1st January 2021.

Latest figures:

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 11 additional deaths related to COVID-19.

There has been a total of 2,248 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight, Thursday 31st December, the HPSC has been notified of 1,754 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 93,532* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today:

846 are men / 900 are women

64% are under 45 years of age

The median age is 35 years old

523 in Dublin, 296 in Cork, 180 in Galway, 104 in Mayo, 94 in Kerry and the remaining 557 cases are spread across all other counties.

12 cases have been confirmed in Laois, 25 in Offaly and Westmeath has 23 new cases. 

As of 2pm today, 504 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 47 are in ICU. 46 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said: “The most concerning trend at present is the rapidly increasing number of people being admitted to hospital - we are now admitting between 50 – 70 people a day to our hospital system. Unfortunately, we expect this to get worse before it gets better. Our health system will not continue to cope with this level of impact.

We have also seen a significant increase in positive laboratory tests in recent days reflecting a true increase in the incidence of the disease as well as the delay in people coming forward for testing over the Christmas period. As our systems catch up with these effects it places significant pressure on our reporting system.

We have always understood that numbers of positive tests or confirmed cases would be a less reliable indicator over the Christmas period. This is typical of infectious disease reporting annually over the two weeks of Christmas and New Year.

What is clear are the measures that the Government has now mandated and the behaviours that we as individuals need to observe. Everyone needs to stay at home other than for essential work or care.”

Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said: “Tests processed and reported on a given day will normally be validated and confirmed by the HPSC the following day. Positive tests detected in laboratories require validation (to remove duplicates and other tests that do not create new cases) and transfer to the HPSC database before confirmation and reporting.

A very large volume of positive tests in recent days means there is a delay in formal reporting. In excess of 9,000 additional new cases will be reported over the coming days. The reporting delay does not affect case management or contact tracing or our overall monitoring and modelling of the pandemic.”

Today’s cases, 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and new cases in last 14 days (as of midnight 31 December 2020) (incidence rate based on Census 2016 county population)

 

County

Today's cases (to midnight 31Dec2020)

14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population (18Dec2020 to 31Dec2020)

New Cases during last 14 days (18Dec2020 to 31Dec2020)

Ireland

         1,754

321.3

         15,302

Monaghan

               26

581.6

               357

Donegal

               44

552.2

               879

Louth

               46

528.4

               681

Limerick

               53

506.4

               987

Wexford

               30

370.7

               555

Cavan

               23

364.9

               278

Dublin

            523

358.9

           4,836

Kilkenny

               25

351.7

               349

Kerry

               94

331.1

               489

Mayo

            104

328.7

               429

Sligo

               10

309.8

               203

Cork

            296

289.9

           1,574

Meath

               26

284.6

               555

Galway

            180

281.3

               726

Laois

               12

271.6

               230

Carlow

                 7

268.7

               153

Clare

               19

234

               278

Roscommon

               63

223.1

               144

Kildare

               56

222.5

               495

Westmeath

               23

209.5

               186

Waterford

                 5

203.1

               236

Longford

               19

168.8

                 69

Offaly

               25

161.6

               126

Wicklow

               15

154.5

               220

Leitrim

               10

143.6

                 46

Tipperary

               20

138.5

               221

Pre-schools:

Pre-schools centres will stay closed until January 11th.

Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman met with members of the ECCE today and accepted their request to align the reopening of early learning centres with schools.

The ECCE pre-school programme provides two years of state funded preschools for 100,000 children.

Private childcare services and childminders are permitted to reopen as planned on Monday.

Testing:

The Chief Medical Officer say it’s no longer possible to test everyone who's come into close contact with a confirmed case of Covid-19.

New guidance means they will instead have to restrict their movements for 14 days and contact a GP if symptoms develop.

Yesterday 1,620 new cases of the virus were confirmed - a figure which NPHET says will increase significantly over the next week.

490 people are also being treated for the disease in hospital.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan says it’s no longer possible to test every close contact:

Meanwhile, NPHET expects the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine, which has been approved by the US, to be authorised in Europe next week.

The Oxford-Astrazeneca dose is also being considered by the European Medicine Agency.

Professor Karina Butler says the vaccine programme will increase in capacity if more jabs are approved:

Tax:

The Taoiseach says the government has no plans to increase income tax or USC this year.

Ireland's expected to borrow heavily again in 2021, mainly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It has led to fears that tax increases could be on the cards to meet repayments.

But Micheál Martin says that's not on the agenda this year:

PUP:

The Social Protection Minister says the current rate of the PUP payment should continue to the end of March.

She says it can be reviewed again at that stage depending on the numbers of the virus.

Minister Heather Humphreys says with so many job losses she doesn't want people to worry:

Schools:

Labour TD Aodhan O'Riordain says the reasons must stack up for re-opening schools on January the 11th.

The Taoiseach has confirmed that would be the date, after he announced the new level of restrictions.

Deputy O'Riordain says the Education Minister Norma Foley needs to engage more with teachers:

Local figures:

1,620 new cases of covid 19 have been confirmed and 12 more people with the virus have died.

The Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan says the alarming escalation in the incidence of the virus in the general population gives great cause for concern.

There are 498 new infections in Dublin, 203 in Limerick, 89 in Galway, 73 in Cork and 67 in Mayo - the rest are spread across all other counties.

490 coronavirus patients are in hospital, of which 42 are in ICU.

96 new cases were confirmed in the midlands. 

50 were in Laois, with Offaly having 28 new cases and another 18 were reported in Westmeath. 

Laois' incidence rate is 269, while it's 187 in Westmeath and Offaly's rate is 130. 

The national 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population is 296. 

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