AS IRELAND’S Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, has warned people to restrict their movements with Christmas now in view, 27 new Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in Donegal.
Nationally, 15 further Covid-19 related deaths and 310 new confirmed cases were reported by the Department of Health this evening.
Ten of the deaths announced today occurred in December.
Of today’s new cases, 27 are in Donegal, where the 14-day incidence rate, per 100,000 population remains high (230.5), at almost three times the national average (79).
In the last fortnight, there have been 367 new cases in the county.
“Tomorrow marks 14 days to Christmas Day. To ensure the safest possible interaction with your family over Christmas, consider restricting your movements now,” Dr Holohan said.
“Risk assess the environments you plan to be in over the next two weeks; are they compliant with public health measures? Can you keep a two metre distance? Are people wearing face coverings?
“Now is the time to make decisions about what interactions are necessary and pose the lowest risk to you, your family and friends over Christmas.”
Dr. Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: “It is important that the encouraging plans for vaccine rollout in 2021 does not distract from the actions we need to take as we face into December 2020.
“A vaccine will have no positive impact on the trajectory of this disease over the coming weeks and does not give immunity to people over the Christmas period. We must not allow Covid-19 to spread through our communities now, after all the efforts we have made throughout 2020 and how close we are to beginning to vaccinate.”
Since the outbreak, there have been 2,117 Covid-19 related deaths and 75,203 confirmed cases.
As of 8pm on Wednesday, there were 23 patients in Letterkenny University Hospital being treated for Covid-19, two of home were in the intensive care unit. There was also one suspect Covid-19 case in intensive care.
The number has reduced in recent days having been at 30 last Friday.
There were seven general and one critical care beds available in LUH on Wednesday evening.
Earlier today, 14 more Covid-19 related deaths and 441 new cases were confirmed in Northern Ireland.
There have now been a total of 1,099 deaths and 56,719 infections in the North.
