Covid death toll nears the 6,000-mark with more than 150 deaths in December

A total of 20 healthcare workers have lost their lives since the start of the pandemic.

The latest data on Covid-related deaths show 11 people died in the week up to Tuesday, January 4, with 157 deaths occurring during the month of December.

This brings the total number of Covid-related deaths to 5,952 since the start of the pandemic, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC).

The vast majority of these are confirmed as related to Covid-19 with just 97 marked as “probable”. 

This evening, the Department of Health confirmed a further 21,926 cases of Covid-19.

There are currently 936 Covid patients in hospital, down five in 24 hours. Of these, 84 are in intensive care which is down from 90 yesterday.

A total of 20 healthcare workers have lost their lives since the start of the pandemic.

Since March 2020, eight people under-25 have died from the virus, 18 people aged 25-34 died, and 47 people aged 35-44. 

Over-75s accounted for the majority of the deaths, mainly during the third wave in January last year.

Since March 2020, the highest number of deaths per county has been in Dublin where 2,057 people have died.

In Munster, Cork remains the worst-affected with 512 deaths since March 2020, followed by Limerick with 283, Clare with 148, Waterford at 126; in Tipperary, 125 people lost their lives and in Kerry 96 people died.

Impact of vaccine campaigns

However, the impact of the vaccine campaigns can be seen in changes to mortality numbers for nursing homes and community hospitals; since the end of June, 176 residents died, compared to 1,020 during the third Covid wave.

The number of residents infected in this current wave remains high at 2,771, although again this is significantly lower than during the third wave when 8,375 were sick.

Figures on outbreaks for the week up to January 1 show the number of new outbreaks fell from 96 the week before to just 44, although schools were not counted in the newer figures.

The number of new outbreaks in residential institutions remains high at 22 with seven also notified from nursing homes. Once again eight new outbreaks were notified from hospitals.

The northeast region saw 16 new outbreaks, while there were just two in the Southeast and none in the South covering Cork and Kerry.

The HPSC found between June and January 1 outbreaks linked to schools made up 12.5% of the total, and a further 6% were reported in childcare facilities.

In contrast, workplaces account for just 11.2% of outbreaks reported.

Incidence rate increases by 237%

The 14-day incidence rate which stood at 4,450 per 100,000 of population on Thursday is a 237% increase from December 2, the HSE’s chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry told a media briefing.

In the last fortnight teens and children under-18s saw the second largest number of cases at 24,666, he said, with just 400 over-80s becoming infected.

These high case numbers now appear to be feeding into hospitals although at a lower rate than was first feared; on Thursday, there were 941 Covid-patients compared with 619 in hospitals the week before.

The HPSC also said 92.4% of over-12s are now vaccinated. Boosters are now also being offered to all over-16s with 20% of teens aged between 16 and 17 boosted since January 2.

Meanwhile, people aged between 25 and 34 are now the worst-affected age-group in terms of infections, with 29,183 new cases identified in the last two weeks.