Ireland’s highest daily death toll since the outbreak of COVID-19 has been recorded as the country’s chief medical officer has stressed the need for people to stay home.
36 deaths have occurred in the space of 24 hours, the Department of Health have confirmed which brings to 210 the amount of lives lost in Ireland due to Coronavirus. The majority of these personnel were based in the east of Ireland (27) followed by the north (3) and south (3), their median age was 81.
Last week, on March 28th there had been a total of 36 people deaths from the virus whereas there has now been the same amount of deaths in the space of one day.
A further 345 cases have been reported meaning there is now a total of 5,709 people in the Republic of Ireland that have tested positive for the virus.
Latest detail provided for Co Clare has revealed there are 65 confirmed cases in the county.
As of midnight, 42,484 tests for COVID-19 have been carried out in the Republic. Last week, 30,213 had been tested. 19% is the positivity rate for the conducted tests in the past seven days. The backlog for people waiting to have a test processed remains at seven to ten days. Testing centres are “able to meet the demand” of people coming through, Dr Colm Henry has said.
Speaking at Tuesday’s press briefing, Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer with the Department of Health said it was unlikely current restrictions would be lifted following the Easter weekend. He outlined that extra detail would be provided later this week on the next step for restrictions.
No additional measures were recommended during today’s meeting with members of the NPHET and Government officials. “We don’t have an additional set of recommendations”, regarding restrictions, Dr Holohan stated.
He encouraged people not to travel over the Easter weekend regardless of the weather or if people feel their threat of catching the virus is low.
Minister for Health, Simon Harris (FG) stated, “Your efforts are helping our country but now is not the time to be complacent. We need you to stick with the public health advice – challenging as it is -to help save lives & flatten the curve. We never thought it would be easy but it will be worth it”.
