Covid-19 Friday: 50 further deaths and 3,498 new cases

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has this Friday, January 15^th, been notified of 50 additional deaths related to COVID-19.

All of these 50 deaths occurred in January 2021. The median age of those who died was 82 years, and the age range was 45 to 96 years. There was no newly reported death in healthcare workers. There was no newly reported death in a young person under the age of 30.

There has been a total of 2,536 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight, Thursday 14th January, the HPSC has been notified of 3,498 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 166,548 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today:

• 1,576 are men / 1,906 are women
• 54% are under 45 years of age
• The median age is 42 years old
• 1,182 are in Dublin, 421 in Cork, 258 in Limerick, 187 in Galway, 164 in Waterford, and the remaining 1,286 cases are spread across all other counties.

As of 2pm today, 1,850 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised of which 184 are in ICU. 118 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health. said: "New variants of COVID-19 have recently been identified in Brazil, and in travellers to Japan from Brazil. There is no evidence of these variants in Ireland.

"Anyone who has travelled from Brazil in the last 14 days is advised to self-isolate for 14 days, from the date of arrival, and identify themselves, through a GP, for testing as soon as possible.

“It is essential that anyone arriving from Brazil self-isolate for 14 days from the date of arrival before entering/re-entering the workplace. We are particularly appealing to employers to enable their employees to protect each other by staying at home for the full 14 days.

"Further risk assessment of the new variants is expected from the ECDC in the coming week. We must all continue to adhere to every element of the public health advice. This remains our best defence against COVID-19.”

Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said: “We have worked exceptionally hard in recent weeks to reduce our close contacts. At the end of December, the number of close contacts per confirmed case peaked at approximately 6. That has now dropped to 2.3 contacts. This enormous effort is the reason we are seeing case numbers beginning to fall.”

“We know that it is extremely difficult to keep our close contacts to a minimum, particularly over an extended period of time. But this is the main way we can protect ourselves and our loved ones from COVID-19. Again today, we are reporting the highest number of people with COVID-19 to date in our hospitals. We must stay home to protect ourselves and each other.”

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community. As of yesterday, the dashboard includes information on Total Vaccines Administered (1st Dose).

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Today’s cases, 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and new cases in last 14 days (as of midnight 14 January 2021) (incidence rate based on Census 2016 county population)

 The 7 day incidence rate is 644.7

The 5 day moving average is 3,804

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