Waterford city district has State’s highest rate of Covid-19 infections

County also has highest rate of vaccination take-up in the Republic

Waterford city has one of the Ireland's highest rates of vaccination against Covid-19, but one of its electoral areas has emerged as the place with the highest rate of Covid-19 infection in the State.

The city’s south electoral area has a 14-day incidence rate of 1,486 cases per 100,000 of the population, three times the national average which stands at 493 infections per 100,000 people.

The adjacent electoral area of Tramore-Waterford City West has a 14-day rate of 1,121 per 100,000, according to the latest weekly figures published by the Health Service Executive’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre.

Waterford has the highest rate of vaccination in the country with 99.7 per cent of adults over the age of 18 (as registered in the last census) fully vaccinated. The county has gone from having one of the lowest rates of Covid-19 infection in Ireland to one of the highest.

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Longford town has the second-highest rate of infection at 1,240.2 per 100,000. Borris-in-Ossory and Mountmellick in Co Laois have Covid-19 rates per 100,000 people of 1,064.2 cases, followed by Ennistimon in Co Clare, which has a rate of 1,042.2 per 100,000.

Kerry

Kerry is another county which has gone from having some of the lowest rates of Covid-19 to the highest. Listowel has a rate of 1,018.3 per 100,000, making it the sixth-highest rate in the country with a 14-day incidence above one person in 100. Kenmare in Kerry has a rate of 985.6 per 100,000.

Border counties, which have traditionally had some of the highest rates of Covid-19, have shown signs of improvement.

In Donegal the Carndonagh electoral area, the northernmost in the State, has a rate of of 624.9 per 100,000, while neighbouring Milford, which has also had among the highest rates in the country, has dropped back to 508 per 100,000.

Most of Monaghan’s electoral areas have dropped back to closer to the national average over the last 14 days.

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times