HEALTH OFFICIALS HAVE confirmed that there has been one new death related to Covid-19 in Ireland.

It was also announced that there are 40 new cases of Covid here.

There have now been a total of 26,838 cases here, and 1,774 deaths as a result of the virus.Of the cases notified today;

• 21 are men / 19 are women
• 75% are under 45 years of age
• 19 are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case
• 13 cases have been identified as community transmission
• 12 in Dublin, 11 in Kildare, 7 in Offaly, and the rest of the cases are in Clare, Donegal, Limerick, Meath, Roscommon, Tipperary, Wicklow 

Dr Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer said that while the numbers today are relatively low, there are still concerns that the numbers are three to four-times higher than what the nation was experiencing at the start of July.

He said: “When NPHET tracks and analyses Covid-19’s progression in Ireland, we take into account much more than daily figures. Although today’s number is positive relative to what we saw last weekend, we remain concerned about both the number of cases that are being reported and their distribution across the country. 

“The five day average for reported cases nationally is now at 75 per day. Even when we exclude Kildare, Laois and Offaly from this, it remains significantly elevated for the rest of the country at 31 per day – it is worth recalling that in late June, the five day average for cases reported was less than 10. In light of this, I ask people to continue to hold firm and continue to closely follow public health advice.”

Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, added: “Due to the nature of how this virus spreads, there can be a delay between when it seeds and when we see it emerge in our communities.

“For this reason, we work in 14 day and five-day average periods in order to ensure that we are seeing the full picture of how the disease is behaving in Ireland. While today’s figures are relatively low in the context of this particular week, it is important that we remember that this is a long game.”