LAST UPDATE | 9 Apr 2021
THE PROPORTION OF daily Covid-19 cases among people over age 65 has fallen by more than half since the end of January.
The latest data from the Central Statistics Office shows that the proportion of cases among over-65s has fallen from 18% in the week ending 29 January to 6% last week.
However, in the week ending 2 April, 86% of deaths related to Covid-19 were in people over 65.
Between March 2020 and the start of April 2021, over-65s have made up 55% of all people hospitalised with Covid-19.
Overall, hospitalisations have been decreasing since the week ending 15 January.
They peaked at 1,391 hospitalisations in a week and fell to 103 in the week leading up to 2 April.
Similarly, ICU admissions have been decreasing since 8 January.
There were fewer than five ICU admissions of Covid-19 patients last week compared to a peak of 133.
The number of people with Covid-19 in hospitals across Ireland has fallen again.
According to latest data on the HSE Daily Operations website, there were 209 people being treated for Covid-19 in hospital as of 8pm last night.
It represents a drop from 220 people being treated for the virus in hospital on Wednesday night.
As of 6.30pm last night, there were 53 people with Covid-19 in intensive care units, of whom 33 were receiving ventilation care.
Health officials last night confirmed a further 400 cases of Covid-19 in Ireland and seven more deaths.
Yesterday also saw Ireland’s vaccine rollout hit a new milestone, with more than one million doses of Covid-19 vaccines administered.
Tweeting about the milestone, HSE CEO Paul Reid said that this week Ireland administered “98% of vaccines received within the same week”.
He added that the “future is brighter”.
As of 5 April, a total of 667,182 people have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, representing 14.01% of Ireland’s total population. 5.5% have received both doses and are fully vaccinated.
More than 15,000 doses per day have been administered on average over the past five days.
The focus of the vaccine rollout is currently on people aged over 70 and those between 16 and 69 with a medical condition that puts them at very high risk of severe disease from Covid-19.
The government recently announced that the vaccine strategy would be changed to an age-based system once those deemed most at risk from Covid-19 have been vaccinated.
AstraZeneca
Ireland’s medicines regulator yesterday confirmed that it is investigating the first potential case of a very rare blood clot in someone who received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
The Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), confirmed it has received “a case of interest associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which describes cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), an unusual clot in the brain.”
The Irish Times reported yesterday evening that the case involves a 40-year-old Dublin woman who is being treated for CVST at the Mater Hospital in Dublin.
The newspaper said she has been successfully treated and will be discharged in the coming days.
On Wednesday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), announced that unusual blood clots with low blood platelets, including CVST, should be listed as rare side effects of the AstraZeneca jab.
“We are following up on this report to obtain additional details and to evaluate if it is consistent with the profile of rare blood clotting events that were the focus of the recently concluded EMA safety review,” the HPRA said yesterday.
“This report will be notified to the EU’s safety database and will be considered in the context of continuous monitoring coordinated by the EMA,” it added.
The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) met yesterday and is meeting again today to assess if new guidelines around the vaccine should be introduced here.
Additional reporting by Lauren Boland
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say