*Photograph: Sean Curtin / True Media
12 new cases of COVID-19 are known in Co Clare among the 879 nationally while the country has reported its highest amount of deaths in a single day.
Notification was issued to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre on Tuesday of 101 additional deaths related to COVID-19. 83 of these deaths occurred in January and 18 in February. The median age of those who died is 85 years and the age range is 19-103 years. There has been a total of 3,418 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.
“This is the highest number of deaths we have reported on any single day of the COVID-19 pandemic so far. The high mortality we are experiencing as a country at the moment is related to the surge of infection we saw several weeks ago, and the hospitalisations and admissions to ICU that followed as a direct result,” the Chief Medical Officer stated.
In Clare, there are 12 new cases of the virus. The county’s 14 day incidence rate per 100k of the population continues to decline and at a figure of 271.0 is the fifth lowest in the country.
Nationally, the HPSC is aware of 879 additional case with 383 in Dublin, 79 in Cork, 53 in Galway, 40 in Limerick, 43 in Meath and the remaining 290 cases are spread across 20 other counties.
Data from 2pm on Tuesday has indicated that 207 persons are in critical care among 1,388 in hospital. 45 additional hospitalisations were recorded in the past 24 hours.
Dr Tony Holohan detailed that actions of the public presently will impact the outlook of the disease in the weeks to come. “Although we have seen great improvement in the level of infection being reported, we have a long way to go and incidence needs to decline much further. The best way to honour those who have died from COVID-19, and those who loved them or provided care for them, is to follow the public health advice. Stay at home unless absolutely necessary, and encourage your friends, family and colleagues to do the same”.
