The Department of Health has reported 132 new cases of Covid-19 in Galway this evening, taking the number of cases reported here in the past two weeks to 2,624.
Health officials reported a total of 2,608 new cases across the Republic, and 51 further deaths related to Covid-19.
There have been 532 deaths related to the disease so far in January and Deputy CMO Dr Ronan Glynn said that we can expect the high number of deaths to continue over the coming days.
As of 2 o’clock this afternoon, 1,943 people with Covid-19 are hospitalised, of which 214 are in ICU. There have been 105 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said: “While we are making clear progress in reducing incidence we can see we still have a very large burden of infection – to illustrate this on 1 December, when we last eased restrictions, our 5 day moving average was 261 cases per day, today it is almost ten times that number at 2,430 cases per day.
“It is evident that the population is working as one to reduce contacts and interrupt further transmission of the disease.
“However, we are witnessing the effects of high levels of community transmission through our hospital and ICU admissions and reported deaths.
“We need to continue to work together to drive this infection down and bring the disease back under control.”
