BREAKING: Limerick Covid figures revealed as health chief warns 'we must maintain full suppression for several weeks to achieve strategic options for future'
This is an increase on the 61 new cases which were reported on Wednesday evening.
Sadly, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 47 additional deaths related to Covid-19 across the state.
46 of these deaths occurred in January.
As of midnight, Wednesday, the HPSC has been notified of 1,466 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 has been 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.”