There have been six further deaths associated with COVID-19 reported by the Department of Health today, along with 411 new cases.
Of the cases notified today, 19 are in Galway. The 14-day incidence rate here is now 112.8 cases per 100,000 people. There have been 291 new cases in Galway in the past two weeks.
All of the deaths reported today occurred in March. The median age of those who died was 79, and the deaths occurred in people aged from 49 – 87 years old.
There have now been a total of 4,687 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland, out of 235,854 confirmed cases in the country, with one cases denotified after validation of data by the HPSC.
As of 8am this morning there were 297 COVID patients hospitalised in Ireland, of whom 67 are in the ICU. Another 16 people have been admitted to hospital in the past 24 hours.
“Together with all of the basic public health measures with which we are all now so familiar, vaccination will significantly reduce risk of COVID-19 over the next relatively short period of time,” said Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer.
“It will radically reduce mortality when those over 70 are fully vaccinated but will initially have a smaller effect on hospitalisation and critical care until the wider adult population, especially vulnerable adults and those aged 50-69 years, are protected by vaccination.”
“There is a critical window over the next 8 weeks where any significant increase in close contact is likely to lead to a significant fourth wave of infection in the range of that experienced in January 2021.”
“We can and should be optimistic for an enjoyable summer ahead but, in the meantime, we have to continue to work together to prevent a further wave of infection as we accelerate vaccination across society and maintain our health services”.
The COVID-19 data hub provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of the virus in the community including daily data on Ireland’s COVID-19 Vaccination Programme.
As of last Sunday there had been 806,541 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered in Ireland, with 225,684 people fully vaccinated.
