ON a day when 310 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in Donegal, Dr Tony Holohan has confirmed that three cases of a South Africa variant were detected in Ireland.
There have been 2,055 cases in Donegal in the last two weeks.
Donegal’s 14-day incidence rate, per 100,000 population is now 1290.9
Nationally, 20 further Covid-19 related deaths and 8,248 new cases were notified to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre. Today’s is a record number of new cases in a single day since the outbreak.
Of the cases notified today: 3,834 are men and 4,375 are women; 61 per cent are under 45 years of age ;the median age is 38 years old.
Of the cases, there are 3,013 in Dublin, 1,374 in Cork, 538 in Limerick, 314 in Kildare, 310 in Donegal and the remaining 2,699 cases are spread across all other counties
As of 2pm today, 1,180 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 109 are in ICU. There have been 116 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: “Three cases of a new variant of Covid-19 recently identified in South Africa have been confirmed in Ireland today by whole genome sequencing. All of the cases identified are directly associated with recent travel from South Africa.
“Anyone who has travelled from South Africa recently is advised to self-isolate for 14 days and identify themselves through a GP for testing as soon as possible.
“We are particularly advising healthcare workers travelling from South Africa, that it is essential that they self-isolate for 14 days before entering/re-entering the workplace.
“While this variant has not yet been identified in many European countries we believe the identification here reflects the extent of genome sequencing surveillance in Ireland.”