75 new COVID-19 cases in Clare

*Photograph: John Mangan

Clare has recorded 75 new cases of COVID-19 while 46 deaths related to the virus have been announced.

In what has been described by the Chief Medical Officer as an “effect of the recent surge”, a total of 46 deaths have been announced by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre. Of this, 44 were in the month of January while two occurred in December.

Dr Tony Holohan cautioned that the increased mortality is likely to continue over the coming weeks “due to the unsustainably high level of COVID-19 infection we have experienced as a country over the past few weeks”.

Co Clare has recorded a further 75 cases among the 3,086 nationally. For the first time of the pandemic Galway accounts for the most amount of daily cases in the country. 604 cases are in Galway, 574 in Dublin, 466 in Mayo, 187 in Cork, 138 in Limerick and the remaining 1,042 cases are spread across all other counties.

A 14 day incidence rate per 100k of the population of 1498.1 means Co Clare has the tenth highest figure in the country.

As of 2pm on Tuesday, there were a total of 158 critical care patients, this figure is included in the 1,692 in Irish hospitals. 128 hospitalisations were recorded over the past 24 hours.

“At least one in three patients admitted to hospital or critical care in January have been under the age of 65 years. This clearly demonstrates that COVID-19 affects us all, regardless of age or underlying condition. It highlights the need for us all to protect one another by staying at home. Not only will you keep yourself and your loved ones safe, but also help avoid more preventable COVID-19 admissions to our currently struggling healthcare system,” Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Ronan Glynn explained.