Louth’s COVID numbers amongst highest

Louth’s rate of Covid-19 infection remains ‘worryingly’ high, with latest figures showing it has the third highest 14-day incidence rate in the country.

The national 14 incidence rate stood at 84.3 on Saturday last. Louth had more than twice that rate at 174.6 per 100,000 population.

There were more than 225 new cases recorded in Louth over the last fortnight.

The figures were published as it emerged that seventeen members of staff in Louth bakery McCloskeys tested positive for Covid-19 leading to the temporary closure of the business.

The Drogheda company’s retail units across Louth and Navan were also shut temporarily as a result of the outbreak, including its retail unit at Marshes Shopping centre in Dundalk.

Speaking in light of the figures released over the weekebd, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tony Holohan said: ‘I am concerned that we are seeing the incidence of COVID-19 rising again. 429 is a large number of cases by the standard of recent weeks and the five day moving average has now increased above 300 per day.’

He said much work had been done to drive down the rate of the virus during the last lockdown.

‘Our efforts in Level 5 in recent weeks brought the 14-day incidence rate down to 78 per 100,000 population, put us in a position of having the lowest disease incidence in Europe and ultimately protected many people and saved many lives.’

But he warned the public to ‘ take these figures as a sign that we all must now reduce our social contacts, limit our interactions with those outside our households, weigh the risks of what socialising we are planning over the next two weeks, so that we can all have as safe a Christmas as possible.’