12 counties see Covid-19 incidence rates double over Christmas

The HPSC report shows that Dublin accounted for around 30% of the 65,044 cases confirmed in the final week of 2021.

The final week of 2021 saw the Covid-19 incidence rate surge in every county as the Omicron variant swept Ireland.

Twelve counties saw rates at least double between St Stephen's Day and New Year's Day while Laois and Offaly saw their incidence triple.

Westmeath recorded the highest incidence rate for the second consecutive week at 3,056 cases per 100,000 population. This jumped hugely from 1,301 just seven days previously.

The latest data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) shows Clare had the second highest incidence at 1,974 per 100,000, followed by Kilkenny at 1,855 and Longford at 1,820.

Twelve counties had incidence rates higher than the national average of 1,365 per 100,000.

Kerry had the lowest incident rate as the year came to a close at 884. It was followed by Wexford at 956 and Waterford at 1,042.

The HPSC report shows that Dublin accounted for around 30% of the 65,044 cases confirmed in the final week of 2021.

Cork had the second highest number of cases with 6,029 reported in the seven-day period — almost 10% of all cases that week.

The majority of Covid infections were reported among those aged between 19 and 34 years.

Over 1,500 cases were reported among children under the age of 12.

The surge in Covid infections over the Christmas period meant the demand for PCR tests outstripped the existing testing capacity.

As a result, the HPSC notes the case numbers for the final fortnight is not representative of the true scale of infection during the surge period.

A technical issue with the Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting system (CIDR) over the Christmas weekend further impacted the notification of positive cases.