Research confirms Offaly Covid-19 spike linked with county final celebrations

THERE was a significant spike in Covid-19 infections after Rhode won the county football final in 2020, new research has confirmed.

A study carried out by researchers from the University of Galway and the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research has linked five county finals in autumn 2020 with increased incidence of the disease.

The researchers examined the incidence rate for a six-week period after 30 GAA matches across the country because previously it had been suggested gatherings following county finals could have been the source.

They probed the 14-day incidence rate of Covid-19 per 100,000 in the local electoral areas containing winning teams.

They then compared the incidence rate to the other local electoral areas in the same county.

The result showed a dramatic 97-case increase in the 14-day incidence rate in the Edenderry Electoral Area after Rhode's defeat of Tullamore on Sunday, October 4.

“Significant” increases were seen in four other counties after county football finals - Ballymun-Finglas where Ballymun Kickhams won the Dublin title (165-case increase), Ballina, Mayo after Knockmore's win (126-case increase), Monaghan, Co Monaghan, following Scotstown's county triumph (81-case increase) and Ratoath, Meath, after Ratoath's victory (197-case increase).

The study, Assessing the Impact of Mobility on COVID-19: Spatial Evidence from Ireland, was published in the spring issue of the Economic and Social Review, a leading academic journal for economics and applied social science.

In addition to the GAA matches, it looked at movements of people between counties and found that an increased number of visits to retail and recreation locations, transit stations, workplaces and increased time spent in residential locations were associated with a higher 14-day incidence rate of Covid-19.

The study also pointed to outbreaks in meat plants as sources of increased infection. Offaly had higher incidence rates from May 6 to May 19, 2020 and from July 29 to August 13, 2020, caused by a pig meat processing plant outbreak.

Offaly also had higher incidence of Covid-19 from December 1 to December 14 but the study cites no cause for that period.

In Westmeath, the outbreak at the Dawn Meats plant in Kilbeggan is recalled. It caused spikes in Westmeath from April 1 to April 16 and again from April 29 to May 11, 2020.

The so-called LOK-down confined to Laois, Offaly and Kildare in 2020 is also mentioned in the study.

From August 8, residents of all three counties were not permitted to travel outside of their counties except for limited circumstances including to travel to and from work.

Local restaurants, cafés, pubs serving food, cinemas, gyms, theatres, museums, galleries, bingo halls, casinos, betting shops, leisure centres and other indoor recreational and cultural outlets were closed. All local indoor gatherings were restricted to six people and outdoor gatherings were restricted to 15 people.

Those lockdowns were lifted in Offaly and Laois on August 21 but Kildare had to wait unitl August 31.

A spike in cases across the three counties was advanced as the reason for the restrictions but on October 21, 2020 the entire country was put into lockdown.

In all, there were three national lockdowns. In March 2020 people were told to stay within 2km of their homes and all non-essential businesses were closed. Household mixing was not permitted.

The first lockdown was then eased but another followed in October (but with a 5km travel limit) and the third was in December after Christmas.

The pandemic had four distinct waves in Ireland, the researchers said. The initial wave was after the original case on February 29, 2020; the second wave was in October with new daily cases peaking at 1,283 on October 18; the third was from January 2021 and the fourth from July, 2021, when the Delta variant appeared.

On January 21, 2022, almost all Covid-19 restrictions were eased after a sharp fall in cases.

The authors of the study were Cathal O'Donoghue, Cathal Geoghegan and Ruth Kelly from the University of Galway and Paul Kilgarriff from the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research.