The number of coronavirus cases in older people and in nursing homes despite the Level 5 lockdown remains a concern, chief medical officer Tony Holohan has warned the Government.

In a letter sent last week, Mr Holohan said that while the key indicators of the disease were improving, it was still “not possible to draw substantive conclusions about the trajectory of the disease at this point”.

Mr Holohan said that a higher proportion of cases notified in the previous fortnight were in the over-65 age group. “In the last seven days 11.9 per cent of cases notified were aged over 65. This compares with 7.6 per cent of cases notified in the seven days up to the 15th of October.”

Hospital Report

He said that in the week leading up to the October 31st there were 56 open clusters associated with nursing homes and 33 associated with hospitals.

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Eight of those were new clusters in nursing homes and community hospitals with 96 linked cases.

Dublin ‘different’

Mr Holohan said that “notwithstanding the continued overall decrease in case numbers and incidence rates in the general population, outbreaks in nursing homes and the burden of infection among the older age groups remain a concern.”

However Mr Holohan pointed out hat the growth rate of the disease was “currently negative”.

“The current growth rate for the country is -3.5 per cent, compared with plus 4.9 per cent on the 29th of October.

“The growth rate is slightly higher in Dublin at -2.7 per cent, which means the rate of decline in incidence is slower in Dublin that the rest of the country.”

He told Government that the trajectory of the disease in Dublin was different to the rest of Ireland.

“Over the past week the trajectory of the disease in Dublin has differed from the national picture; 31 per cent of all cases notified in the last seven days occurred in Dublin. This compared with 26 per cent last week.”