*Photograph: John Mangan
Less than five new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Clare while the county’s 14 day incidence rate is at its lowest levels of the year to date.
There are less than five new cases of the virus known in Clare, the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) stated on Saturday.
With a figure of 87.5 as the 14 day incidence rate per 100k of the population, Clare’s is the eighth lowest in the country. When Clare had the fourth lowest incidence rate on February 8th, the figure was 173.4.
Across the country, 543 new cases have been diagnosed. 235 are in Dublin, 50 in Kildare, 39 in Donegal, 31 in Meath, 28 in Galway and the remaining 160 cases are spread across 20 other counties.
An additional 16 deaths related to COVID-19 have been notified to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC). 3 deaths occurred in March, 12 in February, 1 in January. The median age of those who died was 88 years and the age range was 59 – 96 years. There has been a total of 4,534 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.
Critical care numbers have reduced by two to 85 while 340 persons are hospitalised because of the virus, 15 of which were admitted in the past 24 hours.
CEO of the HSE, Paul Reid stated on Saturday that the supply of the vaccine “will improve”. 600,000 vaccines have been administered, less than 200,000 of which have received both doses.
