Covid-19 Sunday: 1 death, 429 new cases

THE Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 1 additional death related to Covid-19.

There has been a total of 2,124 Covid-19-related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight Saturday 12th December, the HPSC has been notified of 429 confirmed cases of Covid-19. There is now a total of 76,185 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today:

• 198 are men / 230 are women
• 66% are under 45 years of age
• The median age is 34 years old
• 122 in Dublin, 46 in Donegal, 30 in Limerick, 22 in Laois, 20 in Cork and the remaining 189 cases are spread across all other counties.

As of 2pm today 193 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 31 are in ICU. There were 13 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Dr Tony Holohan, chief medical officer, Department of Health, said: ‘Today, I am concerned that we are seeing the incidence of Covid-19 rising again. 429 is a large number of cases by the standard of recent weeks and the five day moving average has now increased above 300 per day.

‘Our efforts in Level 5 in recent weeks brought the 14-day incidence rate down to 78 per 100,000 population, put us in a position of having the lowest disease incidence in Europe and ultimately protected many people and saved many lives.

‘Take today’s figures as a sign that we all must now reduce our social contacts, limit our interactions with those outside our households, weigh the risks of what socialising we are planning over the next two weeks, so that we can all have as safe a Christmas as possible.”

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of Covid-19 in the community.

Today’s cases, 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and new cases in last 14 days (as of midnight 12 December 2020) (incidence rate based on Census 2016 county population)

• To watch or listen to the Southern Star Coronavirus Podcast, please search ‘Coronavirus Podcast’ at the top right of this page or see the Southern Star on YouTube. This week’s podcast is an interview with Bandon native and Sunday Times political correspondent and columnist Justine McCarthy. Justine, a highly respected campaigning journalist, talks about growing up in West Cork, starting her  journalism career in The Southern Star and some of the incredible stories she has covered in her wide-ranging and very impressive career. And this week's music – from Clare singer Susan O’Neill and singer-songwriter Mick Flannery – is their duet Baby Talk,  which won ‘Best Original Folk Track of The Year’ at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards last week.

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