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LIKE every day this week, there were less than five new cases of COVID-19 reported for Kerry again this evening.
When the number is less than five, the exact number is not revealed until the following day on the COVID data hub on the gov.ie website.
There were 10 additional deaths and 617 new cases of the virus reported nationally this evening. Seven of the deaths occurred in April, one in March, one in February and one in January. The median age of those who died was 82 years and the age range was 62 – 104 years.
The 14 day incidence of new cases for Kerry is 37.9 per 100,000 people. There have been 56 cases reported in the same period and the rolling five day average of cases is 2.
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Kerry is the county with the third lowest incidence of cases in the past 14 days. The national incidence rate over the past 14 days is 118.1.
236 of the cases were in Dublin, 84 in Donegal, 37 in Kildare, 34 in Tipperary, 30 in Offaly and the remaining 196 cases are spread across 20 other counties
There have now been 245,310 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland and 4,866 people who died with the virus since the start of the pandemic.
As of 8am today, 176 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 48 are in ICU. 19 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
As of last Monday (20 April) there have been 1,240,965 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered in Ireland:
• 878,823 people have received their first dose
• 362,143 people have received their second dose
Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said; “We are in a strong position in that transmission levels have reduced substantially and the roll-out of vaccination is protecting more and more of those at risk from the severe effects of COVID-19.
“If we can maintain our current position there is hope that we can look forward to a real easing of measures, but it is as important as ever that we don’t put that progress at risk by letting our collective guard down too much, or too early.”
Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group said; “The R number is estimated as being very close to 1.0. We continue to keep close contacts at 2.6 – a phenomenal testament to the public in keeping social transmission low. All indicators of the disease are stable or declining slowly, though we may see an increase in cases over the coming days. Maintaining this over the coming weeks is key to managing community transmission, and a move towards easing of measures.”
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