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Coronavirus: Six More Deaths Confirmed

Friday, 25 December 2020 23:55

News updates for Saturday 26th December 2020.

Latest figures:

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 6 additional deaths related to COVID-19.

There has been a total of 2,200 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight Friday 25th December, the HPSC has been notified of 1,296 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 85,394 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said: “For the second day in a row we are reporting more than a thousand confirmed cases of COVID-19. Within a few short weeks of easing measures at the beginning of December, we have now returned to the very high levels of COVID-19 circulating in the community that we have not seen since the peak of Wave Two of this disease. This is very concerning.”

“While today is a positive day with the arrival of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (Comirnaty), it does not mean that we can relax our adherence to public health measures.”

“We must continue to stay at home, avoid social contact where possible, avoid visiting friends and family and not have visitors to our homes. Our adherence to public health advice will remain our best defence against this disease and help us protect our vulnerable loved ones from the effects of COVID-19.”

No county by county breakdown has been released today. 

Northern Ireland:

Non-essential shops, pubs and restaurants in Northern Ireland are shutting for six weeks, from today.

For the first seven days, the coronavirus lockdown rules go even further.

Supermarkets have been told to close at 8pm, and there'll be a night-time curfew.

Trial:

A new antibody treatment is being trialled in the UK, which it's hoped will give protection to people exposed to Covid-19.

It's designed to benefit patients who may not respond to vaccines, if they have a compromised immune system, or other conditions.

So far 10 people have been injected with the drug, which was developed by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.

UK:

A further 570 people have died with Covid-19 in England in the 24 hour period from Thursday evening to Friday evening.

The other UK nations have not published data on deaths because of the holidays.

32-thousand-725 new infections have been recorded in England and Scotland.

Vaccine:

Ireland's first shipment of Covid 19 vaccines is due to be delivered to the HSE today.

It's after the Chief Medical Officer warned that the new UK strain of the virus has been detected here after tests in the UCD lab.

Health officials reported an additional 1,025 new cases of the disease yesterday, with 2 more deaths.

Micheal Martin says the first few months of vaccination will start slowly:

France:

France has reported its first official case of the new - more contagious - variant of coronavirus which was first discovered in the UK.

The French national left London last Saturday for the town of Tours (pron: tour) in the Loire (pron: luh-wahr) Valley.

France imposed border restrictions because of the new variant, triggering long queues of freight drivers at Dover which haven't yet cleared.

Figures:

Health officials have reported an additional 1,025 cases of Covid-19, with 2 further deaths.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan has also confirmed that the new UK variant of the virus has been detected in Ireland.

He has urged people who arrive from the UK to strictly self isolate for 14 days, which means no interaction with others at all.

Further testing over the weekend will measure the extent of the outbreak with the new mutation here.

The Department of Health has not released the number of cases in each county. 

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