Further 27 deaths from coronavirus, bringing total to 1,429

Additional reporting: Evelyn Ring

Another 27 people with Covid-19 have died, bringing the total number of virus related deaths to 1,429 in Ireland.

As of 11am yesterday (Friday), 156 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 22,541.

The HSE has begun contact tracing on the new cases to limit the further spread of the virus.

As of midnight on Wednesday, HSPC data shows that 57% of confirmed cases are female and 43% are male.

The median age of confirmed cases is 49 years while 6,586 cases are associated with healthcare workers.

A total of 2,915 cases (13%) have been hospitalised and of those hospitalised, 373 cases have been admitted to intensive care units.

Dublin has the highest number of cases at 10,885 (49% of all cases) followed by Kildare with 1,312 cases (6%) and then Cork with 1,199 cases (5%).

Community transmission accounts for 61%, close contact accounts for 35% and travel abroad accounts for 3% amongst those for whom transmission status is known.

Speaking at last night’s National Public Health Emergency Team meeting, Chief medical Officer with the Department of health, Dr. Tony Holohan, said that multiple data sources show that compliance with public health measures remains high.

And while the roadmap for recovery is a “living document” and somewhat flexible, he advised against businesses scheduled to reopen in the later phases - like pubs - from finding ways to open sooner.

While his team furnished Government with public health advise regarding the Leaving Cert, he said that he did not advise on its cancellation. But Government decided that the exams could not be held safely in accordance with public health guidelines.

Airline travel would be a major challenge and he said that all non-essential travel should still be avoided, without giving any date when it may resume.

Dr Holohan also stressed that visitors did not bring Covid-19 into nursing homes.

“We followed this infection and we can see the point at which this infection occurred in the general population was about two weeks earlier than the point at which it began to appear in nursing homes,” he said earlier yesterday during an interview on RTÉ radio.

The decision to impose visitor restrictions was made before any clusters of infection were reported, Dr Holohan said.

“More than an incubation period elapsed before we began to see infection in the nursing homes. We know epidemiologically that that’’s proof that visitors didn’’t bring it into the nursing homes.” Dr Holohan said there would be people who visited nursing homes who might feel responsible for bringing in the infection but that was not true.

Asked if staff brought the Covid-19 into nursing homes, Dr Holohan said the virus did not move but people did.

Arrangements had been made so staff did not move between nursing homes and did not mix with each other outside of the workplace and those measures had worked.

“We have seen a continued fall in the number of cases in that sector and the number of nursing home being affected.” Dr Holohan said there would have been “many thousands of cases” occurring now if measures had not been taken to suppress the virus.