There have been an additional 11 deaths related to COVID-19 reported by the Department of Health today, as well as 1,754 new confirmed cases.
Of the cases notified today, 180 are in Galway, by far the highest daily figure reported here to date in the coronavirus pandemic.
The only counties with more cases than Galway today are Dublin (523), and Cork (296). Other parts of the west are not doing well either, as Mayo has the fourth highest level today with 104 cases.
There have now been a total of 93,532 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland, and 2,248 deaths related to the virus have been reported in the state.
Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer said “The most concerning trend at present is the rapidly increasing number of people being admitted to hospital – we are now admitting between 50 – 70 people a day to our hospital system.”
“Unfortunately, we expect this to get worse before it gets better. Our health system will not continue to cope with this level of impact.”
As of 2pm today, 504 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised in Ireland, of whom 47 are in ICU. 46 additional people have been hospitalised in the past 24 hours.
“We have also seen a significant increase in positive laboratory tests in recent days reflecting a true increase in the incidence of the disease as well as the delay in people coming forward for testing over the Christmas period.”
“As our systems catch up with these effects it places significant pressure on our reporting system,” Dr Holohan said.
Prof Philip Nolan warned that due to the very large volume of positive tests which have come in recent days, as many as 9,000 additional new cases will be reported over the coming days.
“The reporting delay does not affect case management or contact tracing or our overall monitoring and modelling of the pandemic.”
