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LAST UPDATE | 11 Dec 2020
IRELAND IS WEEKS away from a Covid-19 vaccine being rolled out.
Public Health officials remain concerned, however, about an inevitable rise in cases over Christmas.
Health officials last night confirmed a further 315 cases of Covid-19 and 15 more deaths.
A total of 227 new cases were confirmed on Wednesday and 215 new cases were confirmed on Tuesday.
That is a total of 757 cases compared to 822 cases over the same period last week and 830 cases the week previously.
Ireland’s reproductive number last week was estimated at between 0.8 and 1. It is now estimated at closer to 1.
Ireland’s national incidence rate is 79 cases per 100,000 of the population on a 14-day rolling average, according to data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre – compared to 79.7 on this day last week and 105.5 the week previous.
That is a 24% drop in the past 14 days, a slower rate of decline from 31% over the previous 14 days.
Ireland’s Covid-19 growth rate is currently static.
“We have the same number of cases per day now as we had two weeks ago,” Chair of NPHET’s Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group Professor Philip Nolan told TheJournal.ie. “We’ve had Level 5′s full effect and we’re a bit higher than where we wanted to be.”
According to Professor Nolan, what will matter over the coming weeks is our rate of growth.
In a letter to Government in November, NPHET said it will be possible to suppress the spread of the virus with a 21-day intervention, but only if it begins as case numbers near 400 per day.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan warned last week, however, that cases are unlikely to fall below 200 per day and said NPHET’s projection of 300 to 600 cases per day by the second week of January is “conservative”. It does not take account of socialisation around Christmas.
Taking that into account, NPHET’s modelling projects an easing of restrictions from 18 December could lead to an R-number of 2 and 800 to 1,200 cases per day by the second week of January.
However, NPHET’s modelling is based on a rapid growth rate of 100 cases per day on 1 December rising to 400 cases per day by January.
The threshold for intervention is now likely higher – 600-700 cases cases per day – due to Ireland’s growth rate stopping and cases sticking at an average of 285 per day.
If cases begin to rise our rate of growth will be closely monitored.
Looking at 14-day incidence rates in individual counties, these have decreased in recent weeks in line with case numbers. However, incidence in certain counties is rising.
Donegal – which has the highest incidence of Covid-19 in Ireland – had seen its 14-day incidence rate drop from 264.5 cases per 100,000 on Friday 20 November to 212.3 last Thursday.
It has risen over the past seven days to 230.5 cases per 100,000.
As cases increase in Northern Ireland, cross-border transmission into Donegal is recurring, said Professor Nolan, adding that Donegal accounts for 60% of all cross-border commutes.
Looking at Local Electoral Area data, Carndonagh LEA in north Donegal has an incidence rate of 518.7 cases per 100,000. Letterkenny LEA is currently at 322.2 cases per 100,000 – both considerably higher than Glenties LEA in west Donegal where the current incidence rate is 62.2 cases per 100,000.
For a breakdown of incidence rates in LEAs around Ireland, see here.
Kilkenny – which has seen a large hospital outbreak in recent weeks – has a 14-day incidence rate of 173.5 – a 16% increase since last Thursday.
Louth is the third-highest county in Ireland with a 14-day incidence rate of 159.8 cases per 100,000. However, that is a 13% decrease since last Thursday.
Counties with the lowest incidence rates include Leitrim (18.7), Westmeath (20.3) and Kerry (23.7).
Comparing Ireland to other European countries, Ireland’s 14-day incidence rate is lower than France (230.0), Spain (228.0), the United Kingdom (314.8) and Italy (479.3), according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The above countries, including Ireland, are still considerably lower than both Croatia, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1171.5 cases and Luxembourg, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1202.2 cases per 100,000.
Testing & Tracing
Approximately 116,000 tests were carried out over the 7 days up to Thursday 22 October when Ireland entered Level 5. The positivity rate then was 6.9%.
Approximately 103,000 tests were carried out in the 7 days up to 29 October with 88,547 tests having been carried in the seven days up to Thursday 5 November.
Three weeks into Level 5, 77,718 tests had been carried out in the seven days up to 12 November with 77,292 tests having been carried out up to 19 November and 77,805 tests being carried out in the last seven days up to last Friday.
So, while the number of tests had dropped by 33% between Level 5 kicking in and the halfway point on 12 November, the number of tests each week since then has remained static at around 77,000.
This week, approximately 77,000 tests have been carried in the past seven days.
The positivity rate – which had decreased to 2.7% last week – is down to 2.4%, the lowest point since September.
Hospital & ICU
There have been 11 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours and 17 discharges.
There are – as of this morning – 203 confirmed Covid-19 cases in hospitals and 36 people in Intensive Care Units.
Last Thursday, there were 234 hospitalised cases of Covid-19 and 32 people in ICU.
Health officials on Wednesday reported 8 further ICU cases in one day, and cautioned that Covid-19 remains an “extremely infectious” virus.
As seen in the graph below, ICU cases have risen sharply in recent days.
Clusters & Outbreaks
Last week saw a significant reduction in the number of household outbreaks – a key indicator as Level 5 restrictions were introduced and one which will be closely monitored leading up to Christmas.
There were 262 new outbreaks in private homes up to Saturday 28 November – a decrease of 60% – from the previous week bringing to 7,123 the total number of outbreaks in this setting since the pandemic reached Ireland.
In a sign that viral transmission is neither rising nor decreasing there were 288 new outbreaks in private homes up to last Saturday.
Of these, 4,744 remain open.
Outbreaks in schools have also remained steady since last week.
There were 14 outbreaks reported by the HPSC up to Saturday. There were 12 outbreaks reported in the 7 days beforehand.
The HPSC notes, however: “These outbreaks are outbreaks associated with school children +/or school staff. Transmission of Covid-19 within the school has not necessarily been established in these outbreaks.”
The total number of outbreaks since the start of the pandemic is 9,746. Of these, 5,424 remain “open” according to the HPSC’s recent data.
For an outbreak to be considered “closed”, there must be 28 days from the last case diagnosed or becoming symptomatic.
There has also been a further 8 outbreaks in workplace settings, bringing to 29 the number of outbreaks in this setting between 28 November and today.
Finally, there have been 5 new outbreaks in nursing homes – 32 outbreaks in nursing homes remain “open”.
Between 28 November and last Saturday, the number of outbreaks across all settings had decreased by just 1.1%.
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The analysis brings out several more questions;
Is there an explanation from NPHET why the county with the current highest incidence, Donegal, borders with the county with the lowest, Leitrim.
Science says that the virus does not discriminate, we are told, so why is it so preferable to Leitrim people?
How many people are there in the country now with Covid, the last official number released was in June. Did NPHET stop counting that figure back then?
How many cases have been identified from 1st August onwards that were infected in a hospital or care home setting, whether as a patient, employee or visitor?
What changes has NPHET made to it’s modelling process to increase it’s accuracy since March?
These may not have dawned on the Journal journalists, but the answers would still be helpful.
@Garry Coll: It’s because North Donegal borders with Derry/Tyrone. Southern Donegal doesn’t have high rates which is the part close to Leitrim
@Spring2020:
South Donegal is about 90, Leitrim is around 15. Try again.
@Garry Coll: Not sure what is taken as south Donegal in the figures Gary. It could be cut off at Donegal town or a line from south-west to north-east as I think some of the sports organisations do. Anyway there is very little connection with Donegal and North Leitrim. About 15 miles of border with them and the way it forms geographically means there is more interaction with Fermanagh and just pass through traffic of about 2 miles with Leitrim heading south. Although the automatic assumption is the interaction in North Donegal with Strabane/ Derry is giving rise to the large amount of cases what is not being reported is the large number of cases assoiated with Letterkenny Hospital. Although I have no insight I am led to believe upwards of 250 cases directly to there. You could have greater interaction with people from South of the County and Letterkenny than Leitrim.
@Gavin Linden: Correct. I’m from there. The way the counties meet, Donegal may as well be Cork, there’s very little interaction between the 2.
@Garry Coll: top of inishowen is at 522 per 100000 sw donegal at 67.2 according latest gov map
@Gavin Linden: it the do legal south electoral are map is here https://covid19ireland-geohive.hub.arcgis.com/
@Garry Coll: no one is listening & that’s the reason why …
I had to collect something from town last night around 7pm and based on how people were behaving both in and outside bars and restaurants we’re headed straight for a massive spike in cases. I’m right there with everyone who wants to be able to go out and get a bit of normality, but we know that cases in the thousands just gets us more lockdown and forces all the businesses we want to support to close again. Don’t be selfish, do the bare minimum to keep levels low so we can keep things open this time.
@Ribeard Ó Fiachna: How did you see inside the bars and restaurants? Did you actually go and look in through the windows?
It’ll take the country a long time to recover from this and I don’t mean the virus.
I mean the way we have turned into a curtain twitching, ‘look what they’re doing over there’ society. The East Germans from the 70’s would have loved a population like ours. Quick to turn on each other, quick to report.
@JedBartlett: Because I was walking by, stepping onto the road to avoid big groups congregating outside pubs, hugging, all the things we’re not supposed to do?
I need to be very clear here, I’m not blaming pubs and restaurants at all, I’ve heard of a few that aren’t doing the right things but all of them I’ve seen or been in have been brilliant. If you read my post again you’ll see that I’m specifically calling out the people who are meeting as many people as they want. You can call it curtain twitching but so many of us have lost people this year, missed out on important events and had livelihoods affected, I’m simply appealing to people to try and behave themselves so we don’t get knocked back again.
@Ribeard Ó Fiachna: They should just schedule a final lockdown for the month of February now. It’s clear that opening up over Christmas is going to cause a case spike, regardless of patron behavior. At least if we know in advance, people and businesses can plan in advance of it.
@JedBartlett: If people would actually follow guidelines and not be completely selfish tools, then there would be no need for “curtain-twichers”, just follow the guidelines, its not difficult
@Adam J: Nobody is immune to catching this, both rule followers and rule floaters are both at risk, rule followers have a reduced risk obviously but they’re not risk free unless you hide in a wardrobe until it’s completely eradicated.
The smugness towards people who don’t follow the guidelines really says a lot about people. I doubt very much there are many in this country who haven’t stepped within 2 metres if somebody else since this started or who have flouted some other guideline at some point.
@JedBartlett: Theres no smugness, its simple common sense, no doubt i’ve passed by people closer than 2m when there is no space to distance, but in those instances I am wearing a mask, to minimise the risk (Not eliminate….minimise)
There are others out there that lack the simple common sense to distance or wear masks, we are approaching a year of Covid 19 and they still dont get it, thats the hilarious part. Its the ignorance of those people that are worsening the outbreaks
@JedBartlett: You’re moving the goalposts now.
@Adam J: And there’s no smugness? Read your last sentence again.
@Ribeard Ó Fiachna: well said! It’s pure selfish behaviour from this lot who will have us back in lockdown in no time. Furthermore they might contract and recover but those they pass onto might not
@JedBartlett: Nazi “germany”, dearie. Did you “miss” that part of history” ?
@Iris Weber: Good man, Iris
@JedBartlett: I think you are a little paranoid, there is no smugness, just disappointment at tools who don’t get understand the damage they are doing
@Adam J: And I think there’s a bang of smugness here too. I hope you at no point catch this virus for that would make you one of the tools surely?
Softening everyone up for the next lockdown – we all know already – get on with it !
@Kevin Davy: lockdown 3 mid January.
@Kevin Davy: Stockholm’s ICU’s have reached 99% capacity due to worsening COVID-19 outbreak. Interview with doctors, Radio Sweden:
https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/7430274
The second part of the report talks about the economic damage due to the pandemic.
There are too many who still think we should have followed Sweden’s soft approach. However, Sweden has had a worse outbreak than us and is now toughening up its measures. They earlier limited gatherings to no more than 8 people and they want to enact laws that can force businesses (shops and gyms) to close (see: “Swedish government to ask parliament for tougher powers to fight pandemic” ).
Translation:
Intensive care in the Stockholm Region is under severe pressure. On Tuesday, the intensive care units were 99 percent full. This is the first time this has happened during the pandemic.
These are activities that are about life and death, so the situation is very serious, says Björn Persson, operations manager for perioperative medicine and intensive care at Karolinska.
The director of health and medical care, Björn Eriksson, says that he turned to the National Board of Health and Welfare for staff reinforcement.
A bit of fibbing going on with regard to schools
I know of 4 people who have been confirmed to have Corona, all four tested positive on their 2nd test and negative on their first. All carried on with life with their normal lives until a week later, something is wrong with the timings of the tests
Anyone know what the vaccine related death count is?
That’d be more interesting than the PCR False Positive count…
@Eddie: Yes Eddie, it’s 0. Hope you found that helpful.
@Eddie: GO away to russia.
Let’s change the Antigen test to the gold standard and stop doing a hearing test to indicate the performance of someone’s vision.
@O’Brien: Antigen tests have been reported as being as high as 50% for false positives, the cost is a factor too, Boots UK offering Lumiradx antigen test, is £120
No doubt Boots are profiteering here, but cost is a massive factor in testing unfortunately
Dublin is on level 1 because no wet pubs….rest of the country maybe level 3 can’t say because last 8 months I did not left dublin…..
@Anamaria Strango: dublin is on level 1 because no wet pubs…huh?
have your say