606 Covid-19 cases confirmed as Tánaiste says situation appears to be deteriorating
Covid mural about Covid outside the Science Gallery in Dublin. Picture: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie
Three additional deaths related to Covid-19 have been confirmed this evening as the Tánaiste says the situation appears to be deteriorating.
Two of the reported death occurred this month and the third was in February.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) also confirmed 606 confirmed cases of the coronavirus.
Speaking this evening, Deputy Chief Medical Officer said that while the majority of people are following regulations and making huge sacrifices, data shows that one-in-ten people visited another household for social reasons in the week to March 14.
Dr Glynn said most of these visits involved time spent indoors.
"While this clearly demonstrates that the vast majority of people are sticking with the public health guidance, it does represent a significant change versus January when just one in 20 people were visiting homes for social reasons."
He then pleaded with people to continue following the public health advice and avoid visiting other homes as it gives the virus the opportunity to spread.
Nphet Chair, Professor Philip Nolan said that while the daily incidence rate of Covid-19 is levelling off, the concern is that the country can very easily move backwards and undo any hard-earned progress that has been made since the beginning of the year.
"The pattern isn’t entirely clear and continues to be volatile, so we’ll be monitoring this quite carefully over the coming weeks," said Prof Nolan.
"It is critically important during this very volatile stage that we minimise our contacts where possible and follow public health advice."
Dublin accounts for the highest number of today's 606 cases with 249. There are 57 cases located in Donegal, 39 in Kildare, 32 in Meath and 31 in Louth. The remaining 198 cases are spread across all other counties.
The incidence rate in Co Offaly continues to climb up to 450.2 from 443.8 yesterday. It is well above the national 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 which currently stands at 159.3.
Three-quarters of today's confirmed cases are people under the age of 45 with the median age currently at 33 years old.
Hospitalisation figures have dropped slightly since yesterday with 312 Covid-19 patients currently in hospital. Of these 75 are in ICU.
There have been 24 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
According to the latest available vaccine data, 690,449 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered as of March 22 - 503,796 people have received their first dose while 186,653 have received their second.
CEO of the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), Dr Lorraine Nolan assured the public about the transparency and honesty of the vaccines monitoring and approvals process.
Dr Nolan said that any indication of concern regarding side effects of a vaccine will see appropriate step taken to ensure further investigation if needed. This is the case even where a very small number of side effects are reported across the EU.
She reminded the public there are risks associated with all vaccines but in the case of Covid-19 the benefits far outweigh the risks.
"Rigorous monitoring and safety reporting is ongoing by the HPRA in partnership with our EU partners.
"We have three safe and effective vaccines, Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Moderna and we will shortly add the Johnson and Johnson vaccine to increase the roll out of protection against this highly transmissible disease."
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said the country is not out of the woods yet when it comes to Covid restrictions.
Cabinet Ministers will make a decision next Tuesday on whether some measures - such as the 5km travel rule - can be lifted.
There is a push from a number of TDs, including Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien, to re-open home construction.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar says the reality of rising figures will impact what they can do.
"On Tuesday, we will give as much clarity as we can and as much hope as we can but we will also need to be honest," said Mr Varadkar.
"We are not out of the woods yet but I am hopeful about the summer. However, the next couple of weeks are very worrying. The situation is deteriorating across Europe and appear to be deteriorating here as well.
"We will give people as much clarity as we can but we have seen on so many occasions that this virus rips up our plans."
Mr Varadkar warned there is a real risk of a fourth wave before the summer and said while there is still a difficult path ahead, we have vaccines now.
"We know that they are going to allow us to live with this virus in the future in a way that we have not been able to in the year gone by."
It has been announced today, the HSE is to begin a process of retrospective contact tracing in the coming days.
It is hoped this will help public health to identify the source of community infections, which currently account for about one-fifth of all cases of Covid-19.
Starting Wednesday, the HSE is to begin retrospective tracing over a period of seven days, a health briefing was told on Thursday afternoon.
The HSE says a delivery of over 100,000 AstraZeneca doses will arrive next week as the Covid vaccine rollout ramps up.
Next week's target is for between 95,000 and 105,000 doses to be administered. These will mostly go to people over the age of 70 and the HSE hopes to begin the rollout to those aged between 65 and 69 next month.
The HSE is still expecting one million jabs to arrive here between now and the end of April.
CEO Paul Reid says some of the exact delivery volumes need to be finalised.
"The detailed breakdown that we have right now is on average to be planning for a million per month," said Mr Reid.
"The Johnson & Johnson isn't confirmed. The detailed dates of Pfizer across the various dates of the quarter are still all to be finalised and similar for Moderna.
"Every time we have given dates and numbers out and the Government has given dates and numbers out, they have proven to be changed."
Mr Reid said it would be early May before everyone with a medical condition who is at high-risk from Covid will be vaccinated.
There are between 200,000 and 230,000 people in cohort 4 who are at high-risk from Covid.
"We do expect it will take us throughout April in terms of completing the vaccinations of the very high-risk groups. We have started already, it'll probably be just into early May."
Over 1,500 tested at five new walk-in Covid test centres
Five walk-in test centres opened this morning in areas with high incidence rates and had taken 100 swabs within the first hour.
By the end of the day, over 1,500 people have been swabbed at the five centres.
The centres, ocated in Blanchardstow, Tallaght, Irishtown and Grangegorman in Dublin, and Tullamore in Co Offaly had tested over 400 people by lunchtime.
Working with the National Ambulance Service, each of these five centres aim to carry out 300-500 Covid-19 tests per day.
"For the next seven days, we will run these centres from 11am to 7pm and we will get a snapshot in those areas of the likely percentage of asymptomatic cases," said Richard Quinlan of the National Ambulance Service.
Anyone over the age of 16, who lives within 5km of a centre, is asymptomatic and has not tested positive in the last six months can use the service.
Director of Public Health with the HSE, Dr Miriam Owens, welcomed the opening of the new testing centres today.
Dr Owens said the centres will enable increased ease of access to testing facilities for people who don't have symptoms.
"Together we can break the chains of transmission of this infection, by washing our hands, keeping a safe distance and by avoiding all non-essential activity where you are mixing with others."
People who are showing symptoms of Covid-19 are advised to self-isolate immediately and phone a GP who will decide whether they are to be referred for testing.
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