Covid-19: Holohan flags concerns for Dublin and over-65s

Mon, 02 Nov, 2020 - 22:25

Eoin English and Áine Kenny

We are seeing progress but we need to see it sustained, the chief medical officer (CMO) said tonight as he flagged concerns about the rate of Covid-19 in Dublin and in the over-65s.

Public health teams dealing specifically with schools have also been beefed up, a new seven-day-a-week helpline for school principals has been launched, and a new red-flag system to help identify and fast-track students' swabs from certain schools through the lab testing process has been introduced in a bid to ease concerns in the education sector following the reopening of schools after the mid-term break.

The detail emerged as two additional deaths related to Covid-19 and 767 confirmed cases of the illness were reported last night.

Of the latest cases notified, 355 are men and 411 are women, 68% are under 45 years of age, and the median age was 33, with 321 of the cases in Dublin, 84 in Cork, 47 in Meath, 34 in Limerick, 24 in Roscommon and the remaining 257 cases are spread across all other counties.

Long way to go

CMO Dr Tony Holohan said thanks to the hard work and “high standard of behaviour” of people who have taken on board the public health advice to limit the transmission of this illness, the figures are trending downwards, and the positivity rate is reducing but he said there is still a long way to go.

He said the fuller effect of Level 5 restrictions may emerge by the end of this week but he said it’s important that people stay the course.

“Keeping this up is really difficult and people will look understandable for the earliest opportunity to step away from these measures but we have to keep stressing the importance of keeping up the standards of behaviour,” he said.

“We still have almost 800 cases today. It’s still a very large burden of infection, albeit on a decreasing trajectory. We want to keep up the standard of behaviour."

He said while the most recent restrictions appear to be having the desired impact on the disease, he now has two main sources of concern - the rates in Dublin haven’t declined to the extent that he would like and there are rising incidents of cases in the over 65s.

He said the seven-day incidence rate has dropped slightly in Dublin but that daily case rates are still hovering between 200 and 300 despite the level 3 restrictions being in place before the country was moved to Level 5 almost two weeks ago.

“We would like to see that dropping but it’s a pattern we have seen in other jurisdictions,” he said.

He also confirmed that foreign travel will be among the items being considered by NPHET in the run-up to Christmas.

Death rate spike

It comes as new data showed a spike in death rates in Ireland during the pandemic.

The CSO analysed thousands of death notices posted on the website RIP.ie and estimated the ‘excess mortality’ from March to September of this year to be between 876 and 1,192 deaths - that between 876 and 1,192 more people died during that time period than would have been expected.

The CSO analysed the number of deaths in April from each year between 2013 and 2017 and found there was an average of about approximately 2,500 deaths.

But according to its analysis of RIP.ie date for March and April this year, the number of death notices rose from 2,861 in March to 3,502 in April - this year’s April figure was over 1,000 deaths above average.

However, the death rate for September remained broadly the same as previous years, with the CSO analysis showing 2,353 death notices on Rip.ie in September.