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THERE ARE CURRENTLY between 15,000 and 25,000 active Covid-19 infections across Ireland.
Case figures reported each day offer an insight into our progress but Public Health officials remain focused on trends over multiple days and weeks.
A total of 2,955 new cases were confirmed across Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday – compared to more than 3,635 new cases reported over the same period last week and 6,500 cases in the preceding week.
NPHET confirmed a further 1,318 new cases last night.
Ireland’s national incidence rate is 397.1 cases per 100,000 of the population on a 14-day rolling average, according to data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre – compared to 621.9 on this day last week and 1,140.7 the week previous.
The country reduced its 14-day average by more than 80% between 14 and 28 January. It has reduced by a further 40% since last week.
Ireland’s reproductive number (Re) was estimated at between 0.4 and 0.7 last week having stood at between 0.5 and 0.8 the previous week.
It has since risen again to between 0.5 and 0.8, according to chair of NPHET’s Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group Professor Philip Nolan.
There is the basic reproduction number (R0), which is the number of people who will be infected if no other factors are taken into account. Then there is the effective reproductive number (Re) - the number of people who will be infected if you take into account other factors, such as immunity through previous infection or vaccination or behaviour which has been altered by social distancing measures.
It is estimated that SARS-CoV-2 has an R0 of between 2 and 3.
To recap, NPHET’s modelling two weeks ago projected between 1,400 – 1,700 cases per day by 31 January if the R Number was maintained at between 0.5 and 0.8.
Ireland trended slightly below that model at 1,300 cases per day – a positive outcome.
In that case, why does it appear that cases have stalled or even increased?
Firstly, Public Health officials have noted a steep reduction in the number of people coming forward for testing at weekends compared to weekdays. This has a knock-on effect mid-week in case numbers as more people are tested on Mondays.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn also noted last night that people are waiting two or three days before coming forward for testing and encouraged anyone who is symptomatic to get tested immediately.
Secondly, the HSE resumed testing of asymptomatic close contacts last Friday. Professor Nolan said this, too, will have an effect over the coming days on case numbers.
Looking at 14-day incidence rates in individual counties, Monaghan has the highest incidence of Covid-19 in Ireland at 876.4 cases per 100,000 – a further 40% reduction since last week.
Waterford is the second-highest county in Ireland with a 14-day incidence rate of 612.9. Louth is third-highest with a 14-day incidence rate of 609.9.
Looking at Local Electoral Area data, Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan has the highest individual incidence of Covid-19 at 1096.2 cases per 100,000.
Enniscorthy in Co Wexford has the second-highest incidence of Covid-19 at 1,086.3 cases per 100,000.
For a breakdown of Covid-19 incidence rates in LEAs around Ireland, see here.
Counties with the current lowest incidence rates include Roscommon (167.3), Kerry (188.2) and Leitrim (190.4).
‘Outbreaks’
Six weeks into Level 5 restrictions, Public Health officials and members of NPHET are confident that people are complying.
It will be key to track over the coming weeks where Covid-19 cases arise.
Outbreaks in nursing homes, healthcare settings and hospitals are difficult to contain and take longer to close down.
These infections will continue to contribute significantly to case numbers over the coming weeks considering the impact Ireland’s Third Wave has had in these settings.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said in a letter to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly last week that the number of healthcare-setting-acquired infections remains “very high”.
Of most concern looking to late February and early March are levels of Community Transmission – where the source of infection is unknown – and outbreaks in non-healthcare settings.
Outbreak data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre shows there were 29 new outbreaks linked to workplaces between 22 and 30 January with a total of 125 linked cases.
There were 15 new outbreaks in childcare settings and 11 new outbreaks in food-processing facilities accounting for 110 cases.
The total number of outbreaks since the start of the pandemic is 11,727. Of these, 6,678 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.
This week, the Department of Public Health Mid-West said it had identified “a growing number of social gatherings that have led to new infections and outbreaks in recent weeks” which included non-essential household visits and large social gatherings.
Dr Marie Casey, Specialist in Public Health Medicine, said colleagues are starting to see initial evidence of student clusters again, and urged all students to act responsibly and adhere to Public Health guidelines.
“We know that it is a very trying time for students with the current restrictions in place. We acknowledge the numerous sacrifices they have made over the past 11 months, and we understand the urge to visit friends and classmates in the current circumstances,” she said.
“However – whether you are a student or not – household visits or gatherings should not be taking place at this time,” said Casey.
“I have seen on numerous occasions how an innocent social visit to a household has led to serious outbreaks, and with the current high levels of Community Transmission, this can happen again if we are not vigilant.”
Hospital & ICU
There have been 92 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours and 82 discharges.
There are – as of this morning – 1,308 confirmed Covid-19 cases in hospital and 188 people in Intensive Care Units.
There were 1,620 confirmed Covid-19 cases in hospital and 216 people in Intensive Care Units last Friday.
HSE CEO Paul Reid said today that current levels of Community Transmission continue to pose a “huge risk” to Ireland’s healthcare system.
HSE Chief Operations Officer Anne O’Connor said a reduction in hospitalised cases since last week does not mean patients have left hospital.
It means they have been de-notified as Covid-19 cases but many still require hospital care once they are no longer Covid-positive, she said.
Testing & Tracing
Testing in January had been curtailed by demand. Close contacts of confirmed cases stopped being tested as the HSE prioritises people with symptoms.
However, the HSE confirmed that from last Friday, testing of asymptomatic close contacts had resumed.
Testing had ramped up to almost 25,000 per day in early January. It slightly reduced to an average of 23,000 per day by 14 January and reduced further to an average of 22,000 tests per day between 14 and 28 January.
On 7 January, approximately 174,000 tests had been carried out over the previous seven days. The positivity rate then was 22.7%.
Approximately 167,000 tests were carried out between then and 14 January. The positivity rate reduced further to 17.9%.
On 21 January, approximately 154,000 tests had been carried out over the previous seven days. The positivity rate stood at 11.8%.
Approximately 142,000 tests were carried out between then and last Thursday. The positivity rate had reduced further to 8.1%.
Approximately 131,000 tests have been carried out in the past seven days as of Thursday. The positivity rate is currently 6.4%.
Vaccinations
Finally, 219,200 vaccinations have been administered in Ireland. That is a further 57,700 doses administered since last week.
Of the 219,200 vaccines administered so far, 86,200 have been in long-term residential care settings – all of which have been first doses – with 133,000 administered to frontline healthcare workers.
Of those, 78,000 have been given a first dose with 55,000 frontline healthcare workers now fully vaccinated.
The HSE said yesterday that a further 29,000 vaccines will be administered in 78 long-term residential care settings, to frontline healthcare workers and to GPs next week.
Healthcare workers with direct patient contact as well as residents at long-term residential care facilities over the age of 65 have been first to receive the vaccine.
Both vaccines currently being used in the roll-out – the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine – are mRNA vaccines that require a two-dose schedule.
HSE CEO Reid said today that the HSE has “always been clear that the Covid-19 vaccine rollout will have many twists and turns” in the first quarter of this year.
His remarks followed a recommendation by the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) on Wednesday that people aged 70 and over should only receive mRNA vaccines – from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna – where possible.
“So far we’ve met all challenges in a safe, effective, secure and timely manner. Our plan is to meet the latest changing requirements in the same way. Bear with us for now,” Reid said.
Reid said the HSE was now working through operational changes to re-adjust the country’s vaccine plan, and would present details on this to the government’s vaccine TaskForce shortly.
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This jump of €3000 over a weekend is a disgusting way to treat citizens. I would be surprised if any of those arrested for dealing drugs in North Dublin recently will see such fines. Normal Joe Soaps make easy targets I suppose.
Remember that when voting again
Yes, remember what party created the disastrous situation where taxes like this had to be introduced.
They are all as shyte as each other. None of them deserve a vote.
Anyone who needs a tax clearance cert to work will be in trouble !! Lots of self employed will be forced to stop work.
These taxs are done so many have no option but to pay if they want to carry on working.
they are complete gangsters the way they are operating. What commercial company could behave this way without being dragged through the courts.
This is insane, there was nothing in the media and no notification about this until this year! How can we possibly have known we were supposed to be paying this all along! What a scam!
You must have been hiding down some hole over the last 3 years or longer not to have known about this.
This is not only a charge on a second home it’s a charge on a non primary principal residence… I own an apartment and it’s my only property but because I was traveling and not staying in the house full time I was told I was liable for the 200 euro fee. I only found out about it when I went to sell the apartment.
Can you please change the opening paragraph of this article to “those who own a property and do not live in it”. The whole “those who own a second property” thing is wrong and what caused the problem in the first place! It’s not about ‘second property’ ownership, just if you own a place and don’t live in it. Evil tax to, hitting right when people were really stuck for money (ie 2009)
Plain English award right there….. its had every moniker starting off with a “holiday home” tax to make sound like a rich person tax. Grubby little tax
Local Property Tax …. EVIL TAX …. spot on Frances. No civilised society should tax Family Homes. Charges for competitively supplied and consumed services … no problem.
Next Time Bring Your Brains To The Polling Booths and Repeal This Odious EVIL Tax Law.
The only way people knew of this tax was through the media as no notifications were sent out originally. Too bad if you happened to emigrate but then to be notified after 5 years that you owe 4000 euro with the possibility of a massive penalty increase if you did not pay up. Why were people not notified from the beginning and why wait 5 years? Something terribly fishy about the whole affair.
Probably the intent was to eventually shake down many emigrants for significant sums of cash since they’re not longer in this country paying income tax & USC to the gansters in Leinster house like the rest of us…
Loan sharks at least have the decency of waiting til you approach them before they hit you with extortionate rates.
These guys don’t inform you about your debt until the last minute and arbitrarily set crazy penalties when they know you’ve no hope of paying.
They have had five years!
The punitive terms involved would embarrass Tony Soprano. There is no reason or cost incurred to justify this. I’m not affected so didn’t follow it closely but I was surprised to hear those who (sometimes with no choice) rented out their home are liable. For the usual suspects nobody is debating whether the money is owed or even that there should be some interest allowed it’s the scale of it that is genuinely shocking.
It occurs to me that there is a fundamental issue here of whether this sort of penalty is proportionate to the debt owed and whether the government can legislate to impose such severe penalty without the citizen having access to and the protection of the judicial system. I should think that this sort of behaviour is both unconstitutional and a breach of ECHR. Where a government legislates for a penalty to be paid, in this case for non payment of a levy, then the penalty must be proportionate and where it is as severe as in this legislation, then there must be afforded to the citizen an opportunity to have his /her case appealed or pleaded before a properly constituted court of law to determine whether the debt is actually due and the ability to pay. This is not a small meaningless parking fine but in many cases a financial penalty that can have serious consequences for personal lives and property rights. Why doesn’t someone affected by this complain to the ECHR? A competent constitional or human rights lawyer should be able to tear strips off this government for this sort of legislation against its citizens.
Outrageous. Didn’t request for the money to be paid at all. Then out of the blue an extortionate bill arrives, how can this be even legal?
Watch the suaside rate jump up in the next few months as the vunerable people are shocked beyond what they can bare
Are you suggesting people that can afford a second house should actually be considered ‘vulnerable’?
PLEASE read the details before making dumb comments. You do NOT have to OWN a second property to be hit by this unfair and outrageously applied tax
Jesus that’s some over reaction even for this hour of the morning.
Anyone who owes this knows they do and chose not to pay. That or they’re just too dumb to be left run their own affairs.
Why didn’t the wright to people 5 years ago ? If u got caught speeding didn’t get your fine in the post you would be happy to get notice 5 years later you owe €1000s and going to jail
This was brought in at the budget announcement stage. It’s a self-assessed tax, not illegal. Self employed people do self assessed tax returns in November each year. How people can say they didn’t know this is beyond me because it was all over the news. People knew exactly how much extra they got on budget day pre 2008 but since then they conveniently forget things like this.
Red thumb me all you want because I don’t care, I do know that many people ignored this in the hope it would go away. There are quite a few exemptions too, read the literature on the website, it’s all there in black and white. I wish some of the crew that rang liveline about this would have done this before calling in because they may well find out they are exempt. Why do I say this? Because I sorted this out for someone about 6 weeks ago. Councils have been writing out to people since around April, so the bollocks going around about getting 1 weeks notice is the usual anecdotal shite that gets reported ad-nauseum or conveniently forgotten to continually push an anti-establishment agenda.
The NPPR wouldn’t go away if ignored.
Same for water charges, property tax etc.
Live with that.
If there are genuine cases where people cannot pay then they will be easily able to prove this to the Local Authority who will then enter a payment plan for the amount due on the date the plan is put in place. The amount owed cannot vary over the period unless its part of the contractual agreement. Which is what a person will be doing. Contract = offer and consideration and agreement on that date.
Its simple but not much of that gets reported.
/ends
As Dennis owns the majority of the media he is not going to rock the boat as far as paying this tax, with the water charges coming on stream shortly he and his media will be keeping a tight lip.
The charge stays with the property for 12 years. If a person does not intend to sell in that period, why pay?
It’s extortion worse than Loan Shark scale.
I was in uk came back late 2010. Ive always paid all my taxes etc and always will. First i heard of genuinly was last week. Loan sharks. I feel violated
If your second property is within 2 KM of your home and you are not receiving rent from the property, you do not owe anything. A member of KCC told me this yesterday. Hope this helps someone
If you own a second property, could you be considered ‘hard-up’ ?
Larry lad do some research before you comment you don’t need to have two houses to get hit with this. If you have 1 house and not living in it for what ever reason you will have to pay up. Ps alot of people left Ireland for work and rented out there houses are being hit
Depends if you own without a mortgage or not. A 1500 a month mortgage on a property paying 1100 taxable income could make you hard up fairly quickly.
In the olden days I would have said no,Larry .As for today ,yes .
See where the confusion comes from , own a house, loose job , nearest job 100 miles away, rent a flat beside job because of negative equity….boom! €7K please , meanwhile council worker neighbour having a good laugh
Pete, I suspect the fact that there was never any official notifications sent to people in respect of this charge and only mentioned in the national media was a deliberate ploy. The gangsters in Leinster house knew this was an excellent method of eventually extracting a windfall amount from those who had left the country after losing jobs due to the previous inept FFailure gov.
It’s not exactly solely about ownership. It’s about where you live. If you own a house but don’t live in it because say you are working on the other side of the country (regardless of paying or receiving rent) then you are liable because it is not your principal private residence. The clue is in the title, which it isn’t called the second home tax or the holiday home tax etc.
Did you get an official notice of everything given or taken away during a budget speech? No, you didn’t, but people are using this shite to have a go at government now. They loved listening to newstalk with George Hook and then ringing in to find out exactly how much extra they got in that particular budget buy using “official notification” as a way of an “out” now.
If you are going to be charged for something you would usually expect to be notified , if you are going to be robbed the element of surprise usually helps the thief or thieves get away with it
@TomTraubert: the difference is the items in the Budget where you get no personal notice of: say, cigarettes/alcohol etc, you have the choice to not buy them. If they increase/decrease income tax where you have no choice, you DO get notified. NPPR has done neither. It isn’t even that – it’s the rate of penalty that’s the issue. A street corner loan-shark would be more upfront. And charge you less.
@Peter Foley do some reading before *you* comment.
I didn’t say anything about paying this tax on any number of homes, I am well aware of the tax and how it is being applied.
I merely asked a question.
And finally, please don’t refer to me as ‘lad’, you may not realise how patronising it is, unless that was your intention.
“You still have to pay the Local Property Tax charge on all properties in 2013 and 2014.”
Not true …. those who live in Local Authority Homes are exempt from paying the Local Property Tax.
Also those who have land property including farm land property do not have to pay the Local Property Tax.
No civilised society should tax family homes. Political Parties again passing Pro-Lobby laws not Pro-Citizen.
Next Time Bring Your Brains To The Polling Booths and Repeal this Odious Tax Law.
Property taxes are common in most civilized societies
Where have all the can”t pay won’t pay people gone?
Nothing got to do with NPPR tax, are you getting confused with the family home tax?
Are you getting confused with the democratically supported LPT
LPT/family home tax? Care to explain the difference?
I do remember FG in their manifesto stating they would not introduce a recurring charge on the family home, when did Labour achieve a majority?
Latest CSO statistics THE AVERAGE WEEKLY wage in the public sector is €918.86, almost €300 higher than the average private sector worker. Disgusting that these people are demanding exorbitant penalties to sustain their own position. Dont forget to Bring Your Brains to the Polling Booths next time.
I think a lot of people commenting are not thinking about the variety of circumstances someone liable for this could be in. It is not a “second home” tax it’s a non principal residence tax. If you owned a house and left Ireland in search of work leaving a house behind which you were unable to sell you are now liable for this. How could we not know about it? We left Ireland looking for work, the only way people were notified was by media which people living abroad have no access to. Also, due to living abroad it’s entirely realistic that people got less than a weeks notice before the bill almost doubled. No logical person can think this is fair.
Did a politician involved in this tax, buy his second house abroad,and now he does not have to pay this tax.
9000 signatures to scrap the Odious EVIL Irish Local Property Tax Law. http://www.localpropertytaxpetition.net
9000 signatures to reform the Odious Regressive Daft Irish Car Tax Law. http://www.cartaxpetition.net
Second homes should be taxed out of existence. This is what created the property bubble in the first place. Too many people with more than 1 property and too many with no home.
So no rental sector.
Maybe no one should allow a kid leave home till they buy a property?
This tax is / was also payable on a property being dealt with under deceased person’s Will, if the house is not the principal private residence of the Executor. Anyone dealing with a house as an Executor over the last few years who hasn’t paid the tax or had legal advice should check this out ASAP.
I hope there will be some follow up regarding the punitive fines that are similar to extortion. The tax needs to be challenged as it is a fiasco from beginning to end. Politicians and the legal profession have gone to ground. Luckily there are a few who will take legal action.
(1) The rate of penalties should comply with the principle of proportionality. This requires that both the tax as a whole, and the penalty imposed , comply with the principle of proportionality.
(2) The taxing process as a whole is flawed because there is an excessive penalty. Moreover, taking into account the proper lack of notification to the house owner regarding the liability the penalty is not a proportionate response to the gravity of the default which it seeks to penalise; and
(3) In the absence of any power to mitigate or otherwise reduce a disproportionate surcharge, the only possible course of action open to set aside the penalties
(4) The NPPR TAX is like an extra tax levied upon tax or an enforced wealth tax by another means ! Extortion
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