There have been eight further deaths and an additional 295 individuals diagnosed with Coronavirus in Ireland.
Clare has seen no increase in the amount of confirmed cases from Friday to Saturday with the latest data from the county revealing there are still 34 cases.
Of the latest eight deaths, six were located in the east, one in the south and one in the west. No further detail has been provided on the counties in which these people have died. It is known that they were three women and two men with a median age of 86, six of them were reported to have underlying health conditions.
As of 1pm today (Monday), there are 2,910 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the county, an increase of 295.
On the island of Ireland, 76 people have died from the virus with a total of 3,443 cases.
Saturday’s 2,475 cases have been analysed by the HPSC. These have revealed that there is a growth in female cases with 49% of diagnoses confirmed as female. The growth of clusters continues, 428 cases stem from 111 clusters. The median age is 47. 645 people have been hospitalised, 84 admitted to the ICU and 578 which equates at 23% are associated with healthcare workers.
Community transmission accounts for 50% of cases with the remainder comprised of close contact (27%) and travel abroad (23%).
Chief Medical Officer with the Department of Health, Dr Tony Holohan stated, “We are beginning to see encouraging signs in our efforts to flatten the curve. However, we cannot become complacent as we are still seeing new cases and more ICU admissions every day. The strategy continues to be implementing public health restrictions to interrupt the spread of Coronavirus.
Daily growth needs to continue to drop, Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group (IEMAG) emphasised. “We know what an unmitigated epidemic looks like, we are not on that track. The model reveals that before restrictions were in place, daily growth rate of confirmed cases was at 33%. This has fallen in recent days to around 15%. But it is still growing and needs to fall further. It takes time to see the impact of our efforts in the numbers. It will be another 7-10 days before we have a reliable picture of how effective our collective efforts have been.”
“Clinicians have to make tough decisions, often on a daily basis. This framework has been developed to support clinicians in making sound clinical judgement, within a very complex environment. We will continue to support our healthcare professionals, especially in the toughest aspects of their work, Dr. Siobhán O’Sullivan, Chief Bioethics Officer, Department of Health commented. She was referring to the Department’s recently published ‘Ethical Framework for Decision-Making in a Pandemic’.
