INCIDENCE RATE NOW GREATER THAN UK’S
THE Covid-19 incidence rate in Ireland has spiked to 18.5 cases per 100,000 people over the last two weeks – raising fears of a potential second coronavirus spike.
According to the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), there have been 879 new cases of the virus in Ireland over the last 14 days which led to the increase in the incidence rate. As of yesterday it has surpassed the UK’s incidence rate for the first time.
Statistics released by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show that the UK’s 14-day incidence rate, up to August 9, was 16.5 per 100,000. As of July 26, Ireland’s incidence rate was 5.3 compared with the UK’s 14.6.
Speaking yesterday, Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said: ‘Clearly things have changed here quite rapidly over the last couple of weeks but things are changing quite rapidly internationally as well.’
He added that he was not going to go into the specifics of Ireland’s green list of safe travel destinations, but reiterated the advice of public health officials, which is that people should avoid travelling abroad.
Last week, five countries were removed from the green list including Cyprus when their incidence rate climbed to 13.4 per 100,000. The UK, Germany, Denmark, and Austria all now have lower incidence rates than Ireland, according to the ECDC.
Luxembourg, Romania and Spain have among the highest incidence rates in Europe.
The increase in Ireland’s incidence rate follows a string of outbreaks of the virus in meat processing plants and Direct Provision centres which last week lead to counties Kildare, Laois and Offaly being put under localised restrictions.
Of the 879 new cases in the last week, 325 were in Kildare, 95 were in Offaly and 71 in Laois. There were also 163 cases in Dublin.
Dr Glynn said yesterday that the escalation in Ireland’s incidence rate can be largely attributed to the Midland counties.
‘We have taken specific measures in relation to Kildare, Laois and Offaly but there is a message there for our population as a whole, we are still in control of this,’ he said.
He added: ‘If you remove the cases from the three counties out of our calculations, our national incidence is probably just under 10 per 100,000 for the last 14 days which is significantly below that in the UK.’
While the UK may have a lower incidence rate than Ireland, it remains one of the world’s hardest hit Covid-19 countries. So far, over 310,000 people there have tested positive for the virus.
Yesterday, our own Department of Health confirmed 57 new Irish cases, bringing the total to 26,768 and no new deaths.
Dr Glynn said: ‘I know people are on holidays but it is really important that they don’t drop their guard at this point because, if they do, what we will see is an increase in cases in two and three weeks’ time at precisely the moment that we want to get schools back reopened.’