Five new cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed in Co Clare among the 429 nationally.
Clare has reported an additional five cases of COVID-19 with the 14 day incidence rate per 100k of the population 103.5, the national rate is now 116.5. Of the 429 new cases, 173 in Dublin, 44 in Cork, 26 in Donegal, 22 in Louth, 21 in Kildare and the remaining 143 cases are spread across the remaining 20 counties including the 5 in Clare.
Health officials have been notified of a further five deaths related to Coronavirus meaning that 2,010 have had COVID-19 related deaths in the country.
Progress has stalled in the past week, Dr Tony Holohan stated at Thursday’s Department of Health press briefing. “We now have two weeks to get back on track. Drive down the disease by limiting the number of daily contacts you have. Work from home, stay at home and follow public health advice to get us to a reproduction number below 0.5 by December 1st”.
“Reduced contacts will lead to a very significant trajectory of the disease,” Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Ronan Glynn outlined.
Case numbers have stopped declining, Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group confirmed. “As a consequence the reproduction number has increased to an estimated 0.7- 0.9. The data strongly suggests that a small, recent increase in the level of social contacts has led to the increase in reproduction number we see now”.
