Newly confirmed Covid-19 cases in the Republic have dropped below 100 for the first time in almost two months.
A total of 92 new cases were reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) on Saturday.
This is the first time since March 18th that the daily figures of newly confirmed cases have been below 100. On that date in March, 74 new cases were recorded.
Numbers peaked on April 15th, when 1,068 new cases were reported. The number of new cases has been below 200 for the last week, with the exception of May 13th, when 426 cases were recorded, though most of them were historical cases from the Mater hospital.
The increase in new cases has been below 1 per cent for the last 10 days, with the exception of May 13th.
Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said the last nine weeks had been difficult for everybody and especially for those who have been cocooning or have young children.
However, he said the latest numbers “give reassurance that we have all learned and adopted new behaviours of handwashing, respiratory etiquette and social distance that will serve us well as we work together to reopen retail, business and society”.
Death toll
A further 15 deaths from Covid-19 have been reported to the HPSC, bringing the total number of Covid-19 deaths in the Republic to 1,533.
There is now a total of 24,048 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the State. Of those, 3,092 cases (13 per cent) have been hospitalised, and of that cohort 389 have been admitted to ICU.
Other indicators suggest the virus is on the wane, with the number in hospital from Covid-19 dropping from 419 on Friday to 390 on Saturday.
There were 71 Covid-19 patients in ICU units on Friday, May 8th, and 56 on Friday last.
The reproduction rate of the virus is currently between 0.4 and 0.6. This means it takes two Covid-19 patients to infect one other person on average. At its height in early March, the reproduction rate was 3.7 and before Covid-19 restrictions were imposed it was 1.6.
Dr Holohan said the R0 number, as the reproduction rate is called, has been “remarkably stable” in Ireland over the last couple of weeks.
‘Thank you’
Minister for Health Simon Harris said on Saturday evening he wanted to say a “huge thank you” to everyone for getting the number of new cases down to below 100 for the first time in 60 days.
“This has happened because of you, it has happened because of your incredible efforts, because of the sacrifices you and your family have made. It is really making a remarkable difference in terms of suppressing this virus,” he said.
However, he said the virus had not gone away and people were still losing their lives every day amid the pandemic.
He said that “this next phase we enter is crucial. In many ways I think it’s the biggest test we have faced so far”, trying to work out as the country reopened on a phased basis from Monday if we can find a way of living beside the virus, “finding that sweet spot where we take the public health precautions that we need to but at the same time we can begin to get back to some degree of normality over the next number of weeks and months, or at least a new normal”.
He appealed to the public to stay the course in abiding by public health advice.
“Now is not the time for any of us to get sloppy in relation to following the public health advice because I want in three weeks’ time for us to be able to come together and say, look we actually made a bit of progress here . . . and hope we move on to the next phase. That will only be possible to do if we continue to take extremely seriously all of the public health advice”.
Mr Harris, in a video clip on Twitter, said that the “big national test” was “can we get it right, can we gradually, slowly, carefully open up a bit of our country and start to do a few things that we haven’t been able to do and ensure at the same time the virus doesn’t get out of control”.
Northern Ireland
Meanwhile, the North's Department of Health has reported that the number of people who have died after testing positive for coronavirus in Northern Ireland has risen to 473 after a further four deaths.
Another 40 positive cases of Covid-19 were also confirmed in the region, taking the total number of confirmed cases there since the Covid-19 outbreak began to 4,357.
Figures published on Friday by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) showed that a total of 599 deaths involving Covid-19 had occurred in Northern Ireland up to May 8th (and had been registered up to May 13th).
The number of Covid-19-related care home deaths halved during the week ending May 8th compared with the week previously, the Nisra statistics showed.
A total of 36 residents died that week, down from 72 the week ending May 1st.
Almost half the 599 total have succumbed in care homes. The 274 deaths in care homes and hospices involved 71 separate establishments. Extra measures and funding have been put in place to bolster services in such homes, health minister Robin Swann has said.
A total of 34,466 people who tested positive for the new coronavirus have now died in the UK, a rise of 468 in a 24-hour period, the UK health ministry said on Saturday. The figures are as of 5pm on May 15th. Including deaths due to suspected cases, the UK’s death toll from the virus is more than 40,000. Additional reporting: – PA/Reuters
