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THE GRIM FIGURES and statistics in Ireland’s fight against Covid-19 have been mounting rapidly in recent weeks.
Since mid-December, a sharp and exponential rise in cases has seen the number of people in hospital now more than double the first wave peak and the health system pushed to the brink.
The spike in Ireland has coincided with a relaxation of restrictions heading into the Christmas period.
Ireland started this week with the unwelcome title of worst in the world in terms of new Covid cases per capita.
Similarly, other European countries which also relaxed some restrictions around Christmas time are dealing with problems of their own in the first month of 2021. Even in countries that didn’t relax restrictions significantly, higher case numbers are being seen now than during the summer and early autumn.
Just yesterday, the continent exceeded 30 million confirmed cases of the virus.
Here, we’ll take a look at how other countries across the continent are coping with Covid-19 this January, and how Ireland compares.
If we were to look at daily new confirmed cases per million people, the last time Ireland was very close to the UK, pre-mid December, was on 20 October.
At that time, Ireland was a few days into a new round of Level 5 restrictions to help stem the tide of the second wave.
Different sections of England were placed under different tiers of restrictions at this time, with some under less restrictions than others.
While their cases continued to rise until mid November, ours continued to fall throughout that month.
After a dip towards the end of the month, the number of daily cases in the UK began to rise significantly around the same time that they did in Ireland on 9-10 December.
The difference in the UK was that it was spiking from a much higher baseline of daily cases per capita than Ireland was.
On 10 December, the UK had 240 new daily cases per million people. That same figure in Ireland was 57 cases.
By Christmas week, Boris Johnson’s plans to allow the easing of restrictions and family visits for much of the country was being abandoned.
He told London and the south east that the easing of restrictions could not go ahead, and they couldn’t leave their area.
Similarly in Ireland, cases spiked massively and quickly. It wasn’t until 6 January that Ireland’s almost vertical rise eclipsed the cases per capita in the UK.
Daily case numbers in the UK have regularly exceeded 50,000 so far this year. There are over 36,000 people in hospital with Covid-19, and this has doubled since mid-December. It’s more than at any time during the pandemic so far.
The UK is also seeing the number of daily deaths match and eclipse those seen during the first wave. On its deadliest day so far, 1,564 were confirmed to have died with Covid-19 on Wednesday
While our number of daily confirmed cases is significantly higher now than in the UK, the number of daily confirmed deaths per capita remains lower.
The UK government’s tiered approach saw much of England under tiers 2 or 3 heading into December. Even under tier 3, non-essential shops, hairdressers and restaurants were permitted to remain open – although the sale of alcohol was banned in restaurants.
However, the entire country is now under the strict tier 4 which is similar to the Level 5 lockdown in operation here, with schools also closed.
Although daily case numbers are starting to fall, it’s being warned that the health service is still under severe pressure and will remain so for the coming weeks.
Peak demand on hospitals might not be reached until “early to mid-February” amid fears “unsustainable” workloads could lead to staff leaving, MPs were warned this week.
As of yesterday, the UK has had 86,000 deaths and 3.2 million confirmed cases.
“The time has not yet come to return to normal,” said French Prime Minister Jean Castex last Thursday.
As Ireland was entering November in Level 5 and was already beginning to see falling case numbers, other countries in Europe were facing record highs.
France was one of them.
On 29 October, President Emmanuel Macron announced a second national lockdown until at least the end of November.
On 3 November, it recorded the same number of daily confirmed cases per million people as the UK did last Tuesday.
That began to fall significantly as case numbers reflected the introduction of the fresh lockdown.
On 28 November, it was announced that some non-essential services could re-open while travel restrictions were then lifted on 15 December.
Despite the lifting of lockdown measures in mid-December, bars, gyms and cultural centres remain closed. The number of people in hospital and ICU has remained somewhat stable and lower than peaks seen in November.
In December and heading into January, France’s numbers did not rise in a similar manner to Ireland or the UK.
There are concerns now that the presence of the new variant first identified in the UK could worsen the situation as case numbers have begun to climb again.
A strict curfew is set to come into effect between the hours of 6pm and 6am. People are being asked to work from home, but shops remain open.
Schools also remain open at this time.
The French government is trying to avoid a third lockdown with partial measures like curfews which Prime Minister Jean Castex called both “preventative” and “reactive”.
However, health officials in France remain worried that a new spike could necessitate stricter lockdown measures in the coming weeks.
At present, Ireland’s daily case numbers are around three times that of France per capita.
As of yesterday, France has had 69,000 deaths in total and 2.85 million confirmed cases.
The situation in Germany has become the worst it’s been in terms of case numbers since the beginning of the pandemic in recent weeks.
While its case numbers per capita are significantly below Ireland – and currently at a similar level to France – its hospitals are also under pressure.
A nationwide lockdown saw the closure of all non-essential businesses and schools from 16 December. Schools remain closed at present in Germany.
More than 5,000 Covid-19 patients are currently in intensive care nationwide, with over 80% of intensive care beds occupied.
Germany has closed schools and non-essential shops, culture and leisure facilities until at least January 31 in hope of slowing the outbreak.
Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Germans last weekend that “these next winter weeks will be the hardest phase of the pandemic” so far, with many doctors and medical staff working at their limits.
At a meeting of senior members of her centre-right CDU party, the German Chancellor said she wanted to bring forward crisis talks with regional leaders to “the coming week”, participants told AFP.
They quoted her as saying the virus could only be stopped with “significant additional measures”.
She also voiced concern about the coronavirus strain that recently emerged in Britain and is considered more contagious, saying people urgently need to reduce their social contacts.
Its health agency is concerned at too many people not adhering to this lockdown compared to the first, and has said stricter measures may be needed to get the numbers down.
It’s worth noting that the case numbers being seen in Germany and France right now are at the levels that were seen in Ireland as Level 5 restrictions were being introduced in October.
As of yesterday, Germany has had 45,207 deaths and 2 million confirmed cases.
Covid-19 is sharing the headlines with a political crisis in Italy at present, as the ruling coalition is looking close to collapse over political infighting.
It experienced a surge similar to other European countries in November and cases began to fall again sharply as restrictions persisted into December.
Health Minister Roberto Speranza told parliament on Wednesday that continued restrictions are needed amid a “general worsening” of the situation in Italy.
Speranza warned that 12 of Italy’s 20 regions were at risk of tougher restrictions after a worsening of the Covid-19 situation, notably an increase in the number of people in intensive care.
“A new strong storm is brewing across Europe,” he noted, adding German Chancellor Angela Merkel “was right when she said that we are facing the toughest months of the pandemic”.
As of yesterday, Italy has had 80,848 deaths and 2.34 million confirmed cases.
In other parts of Europe, it’s a similar story in most places that you look.
Portugal had a similar November surge to other EU countries. But, unlike France and Germany, it has suffered another large spike in cases heading into the new year.
Last week, the Portuguese government warned of “enormous pressure” on the health service as its cases per capita now sit alongside that of the UK and yesterday the country was put into a fresh lockdown.
The Netherlands is currently experiencing a drop in cases after a surge in both November and December.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte extended that nation’s lockdown until 9 February earlier this week.
Under the current restrictions, schools and non-essential businesses have closed. Rutte also said a curfew is being considered.
Denmark currently leads the EU in vaccinations with 2.2% of its population receiving their first jab since the programme started on 27 December. Ireland, meanwhile, has vaccinated 1.58% of its population so far.
Concerns are also rising in Denmark about the British variant of the novel coronavirus, reported to be more contagious.
So far more than 200 cases have been detected in the country.
“With the new variant, it’s a race between its spread and the need to vaccinate,” said epidemiologist Simonsen.
In mainland Denmark, excluding Greenland and the Faroe Islands, 183,801 cases of Covid-19 and 1,623 deaths have been reported.
The only country seeing new daily case numbers like Ireland at present is the Czech Republic. The central European nation has had a post-Christmas surge that has seen it match a similar spike in October.
On 10 January, Ireland recorded 1,322 new cases per million population. On the same day in the Czech Republic, 1,209 new cases per million was reported.
It was until 27 December that stricter lockdown measures were introduced in the Czech Republic.
It’s health minister said this week: “At any rate, we cannot be considering any relaxation [of restrictions].”
The situation is the same in Ireland where it may likely be months rather than weeks until restrictions significantly ease.
However, cases have fallen from their peak, the number of contacts each person has has also fallen since Christmas and the number of people getting vaccinated here provides some welcome news in an otherwise grim situation.
With reporting from AFP
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There is no end to the misery and torment.
@David Corrigan: there is if you want to have a few scoops in Southeast asia and the Pacific.
@David Corrigan: actually look at the trends. Ireland has spiked yes, but cases almost halved on a three day average and in the right direction on 7 day average.
Other countries like the UK have prolonged peaks that are stubbornly staying high. Reducing at a much slower rate.
Our vaccine rollout is actually ahead of most European countries despite the criticism.
There will be very painful weeks ahead but we are on the right side of this. We are all obsessed with the negative dark side of the news but for once, let’s take a breath and look at the hope that is there.
Stay home, stay safe, stop reading the news for a bit and this will get better.
@Motherofthree: It doesn’t affect me in the slightest to be honest. I was thinking more about the business owners, the lonely and elderly.
@Motherofthree: Wise words Mother!
Jesus grim indeed, in a week where Mehole Martin blamed all of us for what happened in the mother and baby homes.
@joe oneill: Why dont you just refer to him as Micheal Martin.
@Michael Carolan: who, mehole ? I actually kinda think it suits him….
@Michael Carolan: of course his name isn’t “Michael” either so…
@Michael Carolan: the very same clown will go in to his office next Tuesday morning and bend the knee to a portrait of Dev, a man whom knew exactly, turned a blind eye to what was going on in the baby farms and instead chose to kiss the ring of every bishop he met, jasus I could think of an awful lot of other names for Mehole.
@Michael Carolan: the very same clown will go in to his office next Tuesday morning and bend the knee to Devs portrait,Dev the kisser of bishops rings and him knowing full well what was going on
in the baby homes.
Mehole, I could think of other names for him.
@joe oneill: Mehole is a pain in the Holohan sometimes.
@Michael Carolan: Free speech.
@joe oneill: ahhh poor micky mumbles!
@joe oneill: you’re a typical left wing, bad influence and probably a Shinner. Thankfully we have decent people in Government.
@john gavin: There we are with the old chestnut.If there’s criticism of the government you must be a shinner..
@john gavin: yeah so decent they had to sneak the 3 Golf gate “senators” back in to the fold, under the cover of the report in to the mother and baby homes, knowing everybody’s heads were turned elsewhere, yeah decent people all right.
We are locked down in the middle of a pandemic and rte has an army of tv licence inspectors touring the country causing more terror. Does the government not realise that the concept of tv licence is of another age and it cannot be defended
@Richard Russell: its a tax of this country.
Pay it if you live here and lobby your TD to do something about it or vote for a different one next time if you are not happy about it.
@Fozz: nope, I’ll continue to dodge the tv license man, thanks!
@Richard Russell: It’s a legal tax of the land and about 13 EUR a month. I’m sure you can afford it.
@Richard Russell: Causing terror?
How were we just at the brink of being overrun in the 1st wave, now we apparently have double the amount of hospital admissions and were still not at the the brink??
@Daniel Andrews: You could argue that we could have had the same amount of hospital admission at the first wave if we had the same capacity as we do now.
@Daniel Andrews: because back then everything was new and we didn’t have any testing capacity, there was very few ICU beds and the Nursing homes were had no support. Now, we have much better testing and ICU capacity, and all non-critical health services have been repurposed to assist in dealing with the pandemic.
@Barry Sorensen: don’t sprout facts like that at people. They are here to make un-educated assumptions.
@Barry Sorensen: And doctors have more knowledge of how best to treat seriously ill patients aswell
@Thomas O’ Donnell: Absolutely. They’re able to treat people sooner and better than the 1st phase with the knowledge they’ve accrued.
An article attempts to draw attention away from domestic crises as usual.
@Elizabeth Dunne: rediculess comment
@Elizabeth Dunne: this is a global pandemic. Did you want to complain about how badly our government is dealing with it etc? Newsflash, it is everywhere, literally every country in the world is dealing with this and the more successful ones that have dealt with it have imposed harsher lockdowns and more stringent measures. Do you not consider it important to view this on a worldwide scale? What exactly was your point?
@Ron Kingston: her point is that it doesn’t suit the agenda of those who simply want to blame Govt for their every woe to show the truth that we all haven’t done so bad.
Ireland as a whole has done very well compared to our European neighbours and that’s down to good leadership but moreso down to good behaviour by the public.
I can’t say why a small subset of people just wish to gloss over that and paint it all so negatively.
@Fozz: I don’t think that was her point but thanks for appointing yourself as translator. The problem is though we have NOT done well, we now have the highest incidence in Europe and as for the behaviour of the public? Are you mad? People here have behaved disgustingly and continue to do so. Not everyone of course but a significant amount of ignoramuses are floating around and spreading it, having parties etc. It’s all a joke to some while others suffer.
@Ron Kingston: if you go back to March through to May we did poorly but when the 2nd wave came we did very well and on cases and deaths we were the best in Europe for cases and deaths bar Finland, Norway and Iceland. If memory serves me correctly some countries failures would have seen between 40 and 70 deaths a day here if replicated here. We went from the top 10 to nearly 50 in deaths per capita and to 75 cases per capita. This was a huge success and, by early December things were looking good and under control. Then we, as a nation, failed badly because of Christmas. Of this there is no doubt. Contact tracing indicates that close contacts went from around 2 to 6. Thus means that people were spending 2 hours or more with family or friends and this contributed to the current surge.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: yes. I know.
@Ron Kingston: I really think that we should have been encouraged by our relative success in handling the 2nd wave – we as in the people for following the advice and the government and NPHET. Many would disagree with me but facts do not lie. Sadly people felt a need or urge to meet up and, in some cases I know of, it was to avoid leaving elderly relatives alone at Christmas while others were more casual or just living traditions. I accept that some were selfish and some travel into and within the country was reckless and there will always be the few .. I saw a 30 second video yesterday of a shop or garage and most people were maskless. The idea that your neighbour or friend or family member might have the virus, and to act as though they have it, has not sunk into some people yet.
With the earlier, 18h to 06h curfew in France, which begins today, no shops are open, everything is closed. You can walk you dog, if you have the right documentation, but that is about it.
@David Stapleton: I am in France right now. Just came home from the market , and shops etc are all open. Not cafes or bars gyms etc , but normal shops ARE open and EVERYONE is out and about where I am.
@Daragh Curtis: what about the 8pm curfew? Was that observed or enforced? When does the 6pm one start? This might explain why France’s attempts to stop the spread is failing or maybe there are areas excepted! Just curious as your comment seems at odds with what is being reported elsewhere.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: France kept its retail open but chose not to open its cafes and restaurants (a big deal for a country like France but they still did it.) The government advice was clear – max 6 people in a home. Strict curfew widely observed and compliance with masks everywhere (including outside.) Rapid testing, freely available. And a genuine solidarity that seems to be lacking in Ireland. Ireland trying to find exceptionalism in fake relativism has been a constant theme and lead to a complacent approach. Every time you look at case numbers multiply it by 13 or 16 to see what the equivalent would be in France or Germany. Not withstanding that we are also an island. It’s been a hash job by a scared leadership, clinging on in in incompetence – afraid to upset the people or the lobbies.
@Daragh Curtis: I thought it was clear, I obviously meant after 6pm when the curfew starts, not before.
“Even in countries that didn’t relax restrictions significantly, higher case numbers are being seen now than during the summer and early autumn”
How to mention this explosion can be explained as seasonal without actually deviating from the narrative!!
@WW: Christmas is seasonal. Not every country was on the 2nd or 3rd wave at the same time. New, more transmittable variants will always emerge and replace existing less transmittable variants. It is not the restrictions that stops or allows the virus to transmit but the actions of the people in adhering yo the advice or restrictions. All you had to do was read the comments here to see that some people were going to have a “normal” Christmas no matter what the restrictions were. I am not sure what narrative you think is being being or not being deviated from. It it were seasonal then South Africa and South America countries would be doing better.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: with respect, I can only speak for this country and I haven’t seen it explained how far more businesses/schools were open and people moving around during August & September yet we didn’t have anywhere near these figures.
With one heart attack behind me and diagnosed with kidney canc6at the mater last nov I m still waiting to be called for my jab by my doctor talk about having one foot in the grave lol
Al the news outlets report “died with Covid”. How many actually died “from” Covid?
@Verners Tess: A better question to ask is “would they still be alive if they didn’t get Covid-19″ .
I suspect for the vast majority the answer would be Yes.
I’m annoyed by this title to be honest. It’s not that new, it’s not a storm, it’s an author ramping up fear with their wording. I guess well done as it made me click in but be aware of your contribution to anxiety with inaccurate, dramatic wording. Hit a nerve and I might not be as fussed another day but I think a bit of awareness / responsibility is needed
One statistic from the UK stats is omitted.
On 5th January 2021 the UK had 78,000 patients in hospital overnight because of the nature of the conditions for which they were admitted.
This obviously is for all conditions and not just Covid.
The same figure for 5th January 2020 was 92,000.
A huge improvement.
Has the HSE provided any stats or figures of a similar nature for the Irish health service for the start of January 2020,and the start of January 2021 for comparison.
The HSE also talks about the availability of bed numbers in the private sector.
How many of these had to be accessed in the first week of January, considering the taxpayer is paying through the nose for having them on call.
These details should give us a clearer picture on how we compare with our EU partners.
Could Ireland’s over obsession with Christmas perhaps be somewhat to blame?
Anyone else read that as farting ?
@Maalouf: haha, now I am.
Much of this ‘new storm’ could have been prevented if people had only adhered to the guidelines for protecting themselves and others. I live in what’s become popular for walkers, cyclists, and dog walkers. There are also a cafe, a chipper, and a shop. In addition to outdoor seating for the shop and cafe, there is also a pub, which re-opened only briefly in December. People were crowded around the tables in the outdoor seating area. I’m out with my dog several times a day and since the first lockdown here in Ireland I’ve observed that the majority of people are NOT wearing masks and/or social distancing. I’ve recently lost a dear aunt, who lived alone and had been isolating herself for months, whose family ignored the guidelines. Her entire family group – children, their spouses, and her 4 adult grandchildren got the virus because of a birthday gathering for a granddaughter that they wanted her to attend (she was 87). She fell ill within a few days within day and died 2 days after being rushed to hospital by ambulance. Two others spent nearly 3 weeks on ventilators. This virus can be lethal and it angers me to see people flouting the guidelines. This was in America but it’s the same here. This only prolongs the pandemic and takes more lives. The slogan that ‘we’re all in this together’ is a joke. Only some of us are actually doing our part. Everyone needs to cop on.
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