ON A day when a further 46 Covid-19 cases were confirmed in Donegal, Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer has issued a warning,
Nationally, one Covid-19 related death and 429 new cases were announced by the Department of Health.
Donegal’s 14-day incidence rate, per 100,000 population, remains the highest in the country at 219.9 with 350 new cases having been recorded in the last 14 days.
“Today, I am concerned that we are seeing the incidence of Covid-19 rising again,” CMO Dr Tony Holohan said.
“429 is a large number of cases by the standard of recent weeks and the five day moving average has now increased above 300 per day.
“Our efforts in Level 5 in recent weeks brought the 14-day incidence rate down to 78 per 100,000 population, put us in a position of having the lowest disease incidence in Europe and ultimately protected many people and saved many lives.
“Take today’s figures as a sign that we all must now reduce our social contacts, limit our interactions with those outside our households, weigh the risks of what socialising we are planning over the next two weeks, so that we can all have as safe a Christmas as possible.”
Of the cases notified today: 198 are men and 230 are women; 66 per cent are under 45 years of age; the median age is 34 years old.
There were 122 cases in Dublin, with 46 in Donegal, 30 in Limerick, 22 in Laois, 20 in Cork and the remaining 189 cases are spread across all other counties
As of 2pm today, 193 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 31 are in ICU. There have been 13 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.