Coronavirus claims additional 31 lives in Republic as toll reaches 1,190

The deaths of another 31 patients diagnosed with Covid-19 were reported by the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) at its briefing on Wednesday evening.

There have now been 1,190 Covid-19 related deaths in the Republic with two of those who died in the age 15-24 year old age bracket.

NPHET also reported 376 new confirmed cases. The total number of confirmed cases now stands at 20,253.

New figures presented at the briefing indicate seven out of every 10 patients diagnosed with Covid-19 have recovered from the disease.

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By last last Saturday, 12,222 patients had recovered in the community - 64 per cent - while 1,164, or 6 per cent, were discharged from hospital.

An analysis of deaths shows 87 per cent had underlying conditions and 53 per cent of cases were in men. The median age of deaths was 83 and the mean age was 81.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said he did not believe the circumstances were in place for an easing of restrictions.

Citing the almost 400 new cases reported on Wednesday, he said “the experience we’re having in the overall population is not quite at the level we’d like it to be” for restrictions to be loosened.

Dr Holohan said he did not anticipate any significant change in NPHET’s stance on the issue in the coming days, though he added there were still five or six days to go before the current restriction period ends and “we’re hoping we’ll see progress”.

An analysis of cases up to last Monday (19,723 cases), shows 58 per cent were female and 42 per cent were male, and the median age was 49 years.

A total of 2,669 cases (13 per cent) were hospitalised and of these, 355 were admitted to ICU.

The number of cases associated with healthcare workers now stands at 5,568.

Of the 356 admissions to ICU, 129 patients remain there while 173 have been discharged, and 54 patients have died.

Some 83 per cent of patients in ICU had underlying conditions and the median age was 60.

Clusters

There are now a total of 369 clusters of the disease in residential care settings, including 219 in nursing homes, NPHET reported.

Residential care settings account for 4,363 cases, of which 3,457 are in nursing homes.

There have been 697 deaths in residential care settings, comprising 547 laboratory-confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 150 probable/suspected cases.

In nursing homes alone, there have been 593 deaths, made up for 458 laboratory-confirmed cases and 135 probable/suspected ones.

Residential care settings account for 59 per cent of all Covid-19 deaths; nursing homes alone account for 50 per cent of deaths.

A census of deaths in residential care settings from the start of the year to April 19th revealed 586 Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes, 16 in disability centres and 14 in mental health units, according to Dr Kathleen MacLellan, assistant secretary of the Department of Health.

There were 616 virus-related deaths in these settings out of total deaths of 3,368 over the period.

“From the end of March we have seen an increase in deaths in this sector that can be attributed to Covid-19,” she said. Ireland is one of the few countries collecting and reporting data from long-term residential care settings since the start of the pandemic, according to Dr MacLellan.

NPHET will give further consideration to the issue of mask-wearing in the general community at its meeting on Friday, Dr Holohan said.

The change in case definition for GP referrals which came into force on Tuesday has led to an increase in referrals for testing, he added, “which is what we expected and wanted to see”.

Dr Holohan said about half of the new cases originated in nursing homes but others had occurred in the community. Levels of community transmission were too high and “we don’t have a good enough sense of where cases in the community are coming from”.

‘Breaking the chains’

Dr Holohan said if he was advising the Government today, he would say current restrictions on movement should not be lifted. He said there were still more than 100 people in intensive care units and hundreds more in hospital with Covid-19.

“The experience that we are having with the population in terms of overall disease pattern is not quite at the level we would like it to be. We have made great progress in terms of slowing the growth rate ... but we are still at a point where we have over a hundred people in intensive care units which is bigger than the number of people we had in intensive care units at the point at which we introduced the tighter restrictions on the 28th of March,” he said.

At that stage around 70 people were in ICU.

“We need to get evidence that we are as we say breaking the chains of transmission, we’re slowing down the spread of infection,” he added.

“I don’t see the kinds of circumstances that will allow us to say certainly today that we think we will be in a position to recommend an easing of restrictions and when you look at other countries that are in a situation where they have had their experience of this disease earlier than us and they are starting to think of lifting restrictions, they are often doing so when they are at a level of experience of the disease where the incidence of the disease in the population and the measures of its impact are much lower than the figures I’m giving you here”.

The advice to Government would be finalised at a further meeting on Friday morning, Dr Holohan said.

He also said there had been no reports in the State to date of people becoming reinfected with the virus.

Rebound

Also on Wednesday a further nine deaths from Covid-19 were reported in Northern Ireland, bringing the total number of deaths there to 338. The figure does not include the number of people who died in Northern Ireland care homes and hospices which is expected to increase the total by at least one-third.

The North’s Department of Health also reported that 55 more people have tested positive for the virus bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 3,463. So far 24,359 people have been tested for the virus.

The figures come on a day when Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the daily numbers of deaths, new cases and ICU patients associated with coronavirus suggest the conditions are not yet suitable to lift the restrictions on commercial and social life.

Restrictions imposed by the Government in an effort to stem the spread of the virus, also known as Covid-19, were introduced on March 28th and are due to last until at least May 5th.

Meanwhile Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organisation’s health emergencies programme, says the proportion of people who have Covid-19 antibodies is low, which means there is a high chance that the disease will rebound, especially if lockdown measures were lifted too soon in the absence of testing and contact tracing.