Covid-19 hospitalisations reduced by over a third last week, CSO figures show

Covid-19 hospitalisations reduced by over a third last week, with 140 patients admitted for treatment, new data shows.

The Central Statistics Office’s latest deaths and cases report shows that hospitalisations trended downwards last week after reaching a summer peak in the week leading to August 27th, when 217 people were admitted.

There were more than 170 people admitted to hospital with the virus in the preceding two weeks, while at the peak there were 1,471 cases hospitalised in the week ending January 15th.

The median age of people admitted to hospital with the virus has been increasing in recent months, reaching 65 last week.

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In August the hospitalisation rate stood at 15 (per 1,000 cases), up from 11 in July but down from a high of 161 in March 2020. In people aged 80 and older there were 163 hospitalisations per 1,000 cases confirmed in their age group during August, the lowest since July 2020. In actual terms, there were 31 people aged 80 plus hospitalised last week.

For every 1,000 cases confirmed among people aged 65 to 79 there were 75 hospitalisations in August, the lowest rate across the entire pandemic.

One person was admitted to intensive care for every 1,000 cases confirmed last month.

Last week 21 people died with Covid-19. Five of these patients were aged between 45 and 64, while the remainder were 65 and older.

There has been one Covid-linked death for every 1,000 cases confirmed in Ireland across the months of May to August. This is down from a mortality rate of 74 deaths per 1,000 cases in May of last year and 24 deaths per 1,000 cases in January 2021. Across the pandemic as a whole there have been 14 lives lost for every 1,000 cases confirmed.

The CSO report notes that August statistics are provisional.

It also reveals a large increase in cases confirmed among accommodation and food services workers when the sectors reopened over the summer.

Using anonymised Revenue data, the CSO could link 50 per cent of confirmed cases to employment records, although results do not do not indicate that a case was linked to a workplace outbreak.

The growth of cases in the hospitality sector came to a peak in the week leading to July 24th, when there were 709 cases confirmed. This was up from 57 in the first week of May, while weekly cases had reduced to 435 by the end of August.

Across the period documented in the report, from May to August, cases were highest in the retail and wholesale trade, a category which includes vehicle repair employees. Nearly 1,000 were confirmed among workers in this industry during the second week of August, while weekly confirmations have been consistently above 700 since mid-July, having hovered between 163-314 in the preceding weeks.

Cases across all sectors increased as the summer months went on, while the construction industry had a high of 477 cases in the week ending August 13th.