Rise in Covid-19 outbreaks driven by household visits, says Government

The number of Covid-19 outbreaks increased last week by 65 to 404 as numbers remain stubbornly high.

Households accounted for 258 new outbreaks, up 55 on the week before.

There were 24 outbreaks associated with schools, trebling from eight last week.

The number of outbreaks in childcare facilities doubled from eight to 16. There were six new outbreaks in third-level settings.

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The number of outbreaks in hospitals fell by seven to 11 and the number of outbreaks in nursing homes which peaked at 11 in January was just two last week, reflecting the impact of the vaccine rollout.

There were two new outbreaks in meat-processing plants last week, with 13 new cases. There have been 1,015 cases in meat factories in the third wave, which began on November 22nd, 2020.

There were 19 workplace outbreaks in total, up five on the previous week.

The largest fall was in extended families, where the number of outbreaks fell by 12 on the previous week from 34 to 22.

Of the 4,786 outbreaks reported since the start the third wave of the pandemic began, 2,526 (53 per cent) were in private homes, by far the largest percentage.

Workplace settings (7 per cent), residential institutions (6.3 per cent), nursing homes (4.8 per cent) and hospitals (4.4 per cent) were the next greatest sources of outbreaks.

There were 42 new outbreaks in the Travelling community last week leading to 82 new cases and bringing to 2,780 the number of cases among Travellers since the start of the third wave in November.

In that timeframe there were also seven deaths from Covid-19. The latest figures suggest one in 10 Travellers has tested positive with the virus in the last four months.

The seven-day average has shown a significant increase in the number of cases of Covid-19 from a low of 480 a day up to March 9th, to 550 a day in recent days.

Assistant Secretary at the Department of the Taoiseach Liz Canavan said increases in Covid-19 are being driven by household visits, rather than house parties.

“We are talking about some home visits that are lasting an hour or more, where masks are not being worn. With the new variant, this is lot riskier than people may think,” she said at the weekly briefing.

“We are well used to hearing now that all social contact is risky. This is especially the case if the contact is indoors, the rooms are not well ventilated and [people are] not wearing a mask and the visit goes on too long.”