COVID -19 cases on the increase in Louth again

Louth now has the sixth highest incidence of COVID-19, with 197 new cases in the fourteen days leading up to Saturday. While other counties have seen a decline in cases, the 14 day incidence rate in Louth is 152.95 per 100,000 population, above the national average incidence rate of 126.86.

Only counties Donegal, Limerick, Westmeath, Roscommon and Waterford have a higher incidence of cases, while rates have dropped in other counties with large urban centres such as Dublin, Cork and Galway.

There were 19 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, as of Sunday, making it one of the largests outside of Letterkenny, Limerick and Dublin.

The latest available figures for Local Electoral Areas show that the Dundalk South area is still a concern, with 86 cases in the period from October 27 to November 9, giving a 14 day incidence of 256.1 per 100,000 population while the national incidence rate is 151.5.

This is considerable higher than Dundalk Carlingford with a rate of 156.3 per 100,000 from 40 new cases, while the Ardee LEA remains the lowest in the county with 18 new cases and a rate of 71.1 per 100,000. Drogheda shows a lower rate in both its LEAs, with 21 cases and an incidence rate of 117.5 in Drogheda Rural and 32 cases and a rate of 115.6 in Drogheda Urban.

Gardai had patrols and checkpoints in Blackrock over the weekend following complaints of crowds gathering the previous weekend.

This had been raised at last week’s meeting of Dundalk Joint Policing Committee and Superintendent Christy Managan had promised that the gardai would take steps to stop it from happening again. The move was welcomed by locals who were concerned by the incidents of public drinking and littering.