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LAST UPDATE | 13 Nov 2020
WE ARE HALFWAY through Level 5.
This week has been dominated by travel, Christmas and discussion around easing restrictions but what does the latest Covid-19 data tell us about our efforts to suppress the virus?
Health officials on Thursday evening confirmed 395 further cases of Covid-19 and one more death.
A total of 362 new cases were confirmed on Wednesday and 270 new cases were confirmed on Tuesday.
That is a total of 1,027 cases compared to 1,357 cases over the same period last week and 2,261 cases the week previously.
Ireland’s reproductive number last week was estimated at between 0.7 and 0.9 having been at around 1 the previous week. It has since fallen further to 0.6.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan has said a reproductive number of 0.5 over a sustained period would be a sufficient level of transmission to move out of strict restrictions.
Ireland’s national incidence rate is 135.5 cases per 100,000 of the population on a 14-day rolling average, according to data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre – compared to 212.7 on this day last week and 292.1 the week previous. That’s more than a 50% drop in two weeks.
The incidence rate in individual counties spiked in October but has since reduced even further over the last seven to 14 days.
Cavan, which had the highest incidence rate at the start of Level 5, now has an estimated 14-day average of 118.1 cases per 100,000, according to the Department of Health.
It was 364.9 last week and stood at 753.5 cases per 100,000 on Thursday 29 October.
That’s a significant decrease of 80% over a fortnight.
Donegal, the county with the highest incidence rate in the country, continues to give health officials cause for concern.
The county’s 14-day incidence rate is currently 281.4 cases per 100,000 – a slight decrease from 286.4 cases per 100,000 last week.
Dr Holohan said yesterday that local Public Health teams in Donegal have noted problematic behaviours with funerals and religious services in the county, but said there is no reason why the whole country can’t move from Level 5 on 1 December.
Limerick is now the second-highest in Ireland with a 14-day incidence rate of 197.5 cases per 100,000 – compared to 227.8 cases last Thursday. That is still a reduction but not as marked as in other counties.
Counties with the lowest incidence rates include Leitrim (40.6), Wexford (67.5) and Wicklow (71.6).
By comparison to Europe, Ireland’s 14-day incidence rate is lower than France (940.7), Spain (599.1), the United Kingdom (471.8) and Italy (726.7), according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The 14-day incidence rate in each of the above countries has increased since last Thursday with Italy’s jumping by more than 22%.
The above countries, including Ireland, are still considerably lower than both Belgium, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1060.4 and Czechia, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 1331.4 per 100,000.
Chair of NPHET’s Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group Professor Philip Nolan told TheJournal.ie that if cases continue to decrease at the current level we should see an average of 100 cases per day by 1 December.
“When we advised Government that Level 5 measures were necessary we really couldn’t be confident that the level of public buy-in would be such that we’d get to where we are today,” he said.
“We’re in a really good state. People have done everything we could have asked of them in the last three weeks,” said Nolan. “We’re very much on target.”
Testing & Tracing
Approximately 116,000 tests were carried out over the 7 days up to Thursday 22 October when Ireland entered Level 5. The positivity rate then was 6.9%.
Approximately 103,000 tests were carried out in the 7 days up to 29 October with 88,547 tests have been carried in the seven days up to last Thursday.
This week, approximately 77,718 tests have been carried out in the last seven days.
The positivity rate is now estimated at 3.5% – a decrease from 4.6% last week.
The HSE, meanwhile, said yesterday that it is to begin investigating where people are being infected with Covid-19 as part of a new “retrospective contact tracing” policy.
The aim is to gather additional information on Covid-19 cases labelled as ‘community transmission’ – where the source of the infection is unknown – and will involve a series of questions in order to build a more accurate picture of where people are contracting the virus.
The HSE has said that it is important to start enhanced contact tracing while the incidence of disease is low.
Under the new system, when confirmed cases are first contacted by tracers they will be asked “key questions” regarding visits to healthcare settings, visits to friends or relatives as well as questions around restaurants, pubs and cinemas in order to pinpoint if a particular setting is high-risk and requires intervention by Public Health teams.
People will also be asked questions about visits to special events, including weddings and christenings, up to 14 days prior to symptoms developing.
Hospital & ICU
There have been 10 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours and 23 discharges.
There are – as of this morning – 275 confirmed Covid-19 cases in hospitals and 38 people in Intensive Care Units as of 8am this morning.
Last Thursday, there were 295 hospitalised cases of Covid-19 and 38 people in ICU.
As seen in the graph below, ICU cases peaked between Saturday 1 and Monday 3, fell back down to the lowest point since 28 October last Thursday, but have since risen again.
Speaking at a HSE briefing yesterday, HSE CEO Paul Reid said that hospitalisations and ICU number are stable but that the health service had not seen the reduction it was hoping for.
Clusters
The recent increase of outbreaks in schools has reduced again since last week.
There were 24 outbreaks reported by the HPSC up to Saturday. There were 30 outbreaks reported in the 7 days beforehand and 56 outbreaks reported in the seven days before that.
The HPSC notes, however: “These outbreaks are outbreaks associated with school children +/or school staff. Transmission of Covid-19 within the school has not necessarily been established in these outbreaks.”
The total number of outbreaks since the start of the pandemic is 7,266. Of these, 4,202 remain “open” according to the HPSC’s recent data.
For an outbreak to be considered “closed”, there must be 28 days from the last case diagnosed or becoming symptomatic.
There were 443 new outbreaks in private homes up to last Saturday – a increase of 123 or 27% – from the previous week bringing to 5,285 the total number of outbreaks in this setting since the pandemic reached Ireland.
Of these, 3,428 remain open.
Finally, there have been 3 new outbreaks in nursing homes – 49 outbreaks in nursing homes remain “open”.
Overall, taking in every setting, there has been an overall increase of 16% in outbreaks since last week.
What’s going out and having a pint feel like again.. We go to work, drive home and await further instructions these days. Hail Leo. Thou shall leak what he likes and we will salute and obey.
@Ashley Rowland: must be great to live in that headspace…
@Paul: Leo may get used to kissing arse and working with total cabbages in FF and GP for watered down power because as long as Mary’s numbers are that high he has zero chance of full majority in future!
@Ashley Rowland: must be great to go out to work and meet people. Let go the end of March not covit related, not a sign of a job or interview, not meeting up with friends since March. Not a good time for many people.
@Ashley Rowland: not sure why you’re having a go at Varadkar about restrictions? He was the only one outspoken against NPHET and look where that got him! A story from 18 months ago involving medics mysteriously reappearing a few weeks later. Not suspicious at all that!! SF are pulling for restrictions and to throw more money at the problem. Do you really think we wouldn’t be in the same position of Mary Lou was in charge? Left leaning parties the world over have no plan whatsoever in this crisis aside from lockdowns and throwing more money at it.
@Ashley Rowland: there hasn’t been a majority government in this country since 1977,what the hell are you on about?
@Ashley Rowland: leos a total cabbage himself he feel at home with the cabbages in fianna fail and greens ha ha ha
@Ashley Rowland: you clearly don’t work in healthcare and see the results of this deadly virus, I would love to bring you in for a day to ICU.
@Machiavellian: haha as opposed to right leaning? Brazil? US? Shining beacons of pandemic response.
@Nan: great can I come too? I’m sure there will be plenty of space for us all.
#DeadlyVirus me hole!!!
@Nan: More non covid ICU admittance than covid related these days. Wouldn’t fancy seeing all the bin covid people in ICU though.
@Ashley Rowland: your right
So going by the official figures in the table above; since March, there have been a total of 38 cases in restaurants, 22 in pubs, and 5,285 in private homes (that’s 5,285 out of a total of 7,266 cases mind). Yet the advice from Nphet and the government for socializing over Christmas, is to do it in PRIVATE HOMES, not pubs or restaurants! There’s something very very very amiss here, and questions need to be asked as to the true goal of these restrictions. A madra with a spade up his thóin could see that these dicisions are most definitely not data driven, and that there is a serious bias against a certain sector. And also, more worryingly, a huge reluctance to tackle the real and obvious source of the spread.
@Shane Slattery: can you compare the two though, since restaurants and pubs have been closed or have had restricted opening during that period, forcing some people, who may have spread it in those settings, to private homes instead?
@Shane Slattery: What is the real and obvious source of the trend? How is it getting it in to houses? Where is it coming from?
@Lorna McC: I think shane has come to a conclusion and then looked at the data instead of looking at the data and coming to a conclusion
@Shane Slattery: it’s not cases its outbreaks. An outbreak is defined as 2 or more cases, we all know about the couple who infected 56 people on a weekend in a hotel. So the figure is a lot higher
@Shane Slattery: cases. . No… Outbreaks are more than one case. So if I pick up the virus is a shop or cafe or bus or office then it is a single case and then I bring it home and give it to all my family (and optionally friends at my house party or family gathering) then it is an outbreak. Two or more people have to become infected in the same place and at the same time for it to be an outbreak.
If I am infected and have family over and infect 5 people they can be traced and tested easily, but if I went to the pub and infected 5 people they could all go home and infect another 5 family members each and no one would know who to trace and contact.
Try working out real world situations to understand the advice.
@Mairead Jenkins: exactly. And how are packs of the same year group in schools getting it if it’s not transmitted in schools? 9 kids in my daughters year group tested positive. They were not friends outside school.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: I do think Shane has a point though. Outbreaks have happened in houses at an alarming rate and although it is the mostly likely place to happen (with a classification of 2 or more) NEPHET have already outlined house parties as been a root cause. With that in mind the closure of pubs, restaurants & cafes has pushed people to social gatherings in houses where guidelines are rarely adhered to. The vast majority of pubs, restaurants & cafes are working hard to comply with the guidelines. I think its time for us to start considering getting people back to socialising in these venues where we have a far better chance of controlling the spread than the unknowns of private residences.
@Shane Slattery: almost 100% of us live somewhere that would be classed as a household setting but there’s no where near that number of people who were going to restaurants or pubs. You’d need to know what percentage of total households are effected and compare that to what percentage of people visiting restaurants and pubs are infected.
@Mairead Jenkins: Well People do not use there common sense & habits they haven’t from the beginning. NOW they might ? be it’s in the statistics
@Shane Slattery: Close private houses is the answer then, isn’t it.
@Shane Slattery: Have you seen the figure for the UK and others who had none of the tough restrictions we had. Or france, Belgium.
We have the second lowest daily rate of infection in Europe yesterday.
It is all to do with keeping people from getting together in groups.
Since last March people have been calling for more restrictions at ports and airports. The Gov and NEPHET told us that the number of cases coming into the country that way was minuscule. Today Tony does a u turn and says the biggest danger in the coming months would be international travel!! What has changed were people travelling in June not as likely to to transmit the virus as the ones travelling at christmas? Pure bullsit merchants the lot of them.
@Seanboy: oh dear… The low risk at the moment is due to low travel numbers, the risk is people getting busses and taxis from the airport and not restricting contacts… Open up the flights to non essential travel and increase number by a factor of 10 and also the high risk that people coming home for Christmas will socialise and not restrict contacts – so when you increase the number of passengers by a factor of 10 you also increase the risk by at least a factor of 10. In June people were advised against non essential travel now the advice for green listed countries will be different – that is what is changing.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: also look at the case numbers presently in the countries that those people are travelling from.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: What planet are you on? By a factor of 10
IT System, probably pay some TDs cousin 5million for a few excel spreadsheets with a fancy coversheet.
It tells us the government have no plan… opening and closing the country isn’t what they are paid for. And blaming the citizens for the spread is shocking and it deflects from the lack of investment in health care over the decades.
@Tom Kelly: absolute nail and head. We live in an era of spin but to see it pervade ireland since March as openly and frequently has been very disheartening. Only parts of the whole thing that suit continue to be talked about. Taking people for mugs.
@Tom Kelly: But at the end of the day, it is the people who are responsible for spreading it. It doesn’t come shipped in through Amazon. People are the weak/only link. With the highest standard, best financed health system in the world, people would still be the source of the spread, we’d just be better able to handle the medical issues it creates.
@Tom Kelly: we could have a hospital bed ready for every citizen of the country and that still wouldn’t effect the transmission of this virus. It’s easy to blame the underinvestment in healthcare but then we are the ones who elect the TDs and since the extra investment needed would mean higher taxes no one votes for that.
@Tom Kelly: How can you have a plan to deal with a situation that one they have never been in before and two changes daily.
@Gary Kearney: Thinking and planning ahead would be a good start. It’s not like the writing hasn’t been on the wall with our health service for a very long time now. Come on, man. You can’t seriously be that mislead…
Did they not say at the start of level 5 that they were aiming for an R rate of less than 1?
@Sam Harms: they did & it’s at 0.6 now out of lockdown now please
@Sam Harms: They said 0.5 was the aim.
@Mairead Jenkins: update Prof Nolan said this morning it’s at 0.5 now!!
@Ron: out of lockdown with nearly 400 cases a day? It would be back up to 1000 in no time
@Sam Harms: good. Yes the first target must be to get the R rate to 1. That means if we have 10,000 active cases and an R rate of 1 we will continue to have 10,000 new active cases on an ongoing basis forever. Get it below 1 and the number of new active cases falls fail to get it down to 1 and everyone susceptible to the virus will be infected eventually. So it so without saying that the first target with the highest priority was to get it down to 1. Also the lower the R number and the more time given the lower the daily case numbers and the more restrictions we can remove. So what was your point? Surely not that when the R number was 1 we could open up?
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: my point was that originally I thought they said it and to be below 1 to ease restrictions and now it’s .5
@Sam Harms: it’s keeping it under 1 that’s the problem. The way we opened up last time clearly didn’t work as we have found ourselves back more or less where we started. As soon as we get the R0 number down we can’t just open everything back up or we’ll be in a cycle of opening up and licking down. The decision to keep school open as top priority means something else has to stay closed down to balance it out.
In summary: How Tony Holohan & NPHET & government spin policy not backed by any statistical evidence to take illogical decisions & yet again resuscitate the myth that foreign travel is to blame as Christmas approaches & after the government opts in to their EU travel scheme. Populists & deliberate obfuscation.
@Isabel Oliveira: illogical decisions yet have been the most proactive authority in dealing with this virus across all of Europe, saving many lives in the process. I’ll stick with this govt and NPHET’s management of this crisis thanks and as long as the rest of Europe’s figures continue to look like this..
@GrumpyAulFella: exactly!! Look at Swedan now in a very serious situation could be a long winter for them
@Isabel Oliveira: spot on
@Alan Watts: exactly Sweden now 36th on the list, testing at 250K per 1m, 605 deaths per 1m. Ireland 75th on the list, testing at 356K per 1m, 396 deaths per 1m. I’ll stick with our approach for the moment.
@GrumpyAulFella: if you need to crack a nut you can use a sledgehammer or a nutcracker. Both will work, unfortunately there’s not much left to eat after the sledgehammer. We used a sledgehammer in October because there was no confidence that the nutcracker was working despite the evidence.
@Derdaly: there is no evidence. We are past L3 effectiveness now and L5 results should bear fruit. There is no playbook for this. There are too many variables, peoples’ adherence to restrictions being the key one.
@GrumpyAulFella: you know that it’s lvl 3.5 that have brought the numbers down and reduced the R number to .6. it’s evident in every HSPC report and jumps at you in the Covid app. We’re 3 weeks into lvl 5 with no apparent acceleration in number reduction. You have definitely parked your abilities to rationally think and analyse. Time to return to lvl 3 and get people back to work. Then we can phase into lvl 2 in December.
@Derdaly: well the plan was to have L5 in place for 6 weeks of course. You are expecting to see an acceleration in the reduction after only half that time while the government said they wanted a min of 4 weeks before assessing. So the expectation is that the numbers will be suppressed much further in the next week so we can flatten this before Xmas. Other countries have been decimated because they played around with the equivalent of our L3 instead of locking down decisively as we did. This is why we are bucking the trend with our numbers now
@GrumpyAulFella: 3 weeks in, you were judging lvl 3 a failure after 2. Like NPHET you just move the goalposts. We’ve bottomed out on the numbers that these restrictions can deliver, especially with schools open. 250 to 500 cases a day won’t change in next 3 weeks.
@Derdaly: No it did not, we did what was the tougher choice and it worked we opened up and it got bad again, the second wave that was expected. Our wave is small in comparison to others all across Europe because of those measures.
I know lads let’s start asking them “key questions” now like how do you like your eggs in the morning? Or how long Do you lick a Malteser for before you chew it? That’s right Tony let’s ask key questions now to get to the bottom of this!! Ya couldn’t make this tripe up!
Riveting
Great news, looking forward to getting back to a sensible Level 2 where we have a reasonable amount of freedom, the government will want to to go to Level 3 because they won’t want us traveling across the border into Northern Ireland.
So, if it’s a breach of regulations to go into someone else’s house, to be in a pub or restaurant except for takeaway, how many people will answer the tracers’ questions truthfully? Even if there was no legal consequence many people may not feel comfortable “confessing” that they have broken the rules. I wonder how this will affect the accuracy of tracing.
So selling the reduction in positivity rate but they did 39k less tests than in October, that’s about a third……… retrospective or enhanced test and trace….. you mean the test and trace that should have been occurring. I’m sorry but these lads are jokers. Would be fired in the private sector. So as per the hspc report, have they changed testing????? Still no meeting minutes published. There needs to be transparency! Anyway we are in a better place and good to take the positives but we need to question how and why too
@Faded79: there’s no trust in testing anymore as one day people are tested positive and the second day they are tested it shows up negative.
All a big fat lie
@B: a d sadly they are Basing decisions on it. Prof Nolan needs an abacus
@Faded79: the tests are demand driven. If there are fewer symptomatic people and fewer close contacts to trace and test, then there’s less demand for testing, so fewer tests are done. It’s not complicated.
@Hundredth Idiot: that doesn’t take away the fact that the tests are not 100% accurate, not raven 60%. For heavens sake even Elon Musk tweeted that he had taken 4 test on one day, same test, same nurse and two came back positive and two negative
@Hundredth Idiot: that doesn’t take away the fact that the tests are not 100% accurate, not even 60%. For heavens sake even Elon Musk tweeted that he had taken 4 test on one day, same test, same nurse and two came back positive and two negative
@B: I spoke to a man today who had it and recovered. He has health conditions and said it ws the worst thing he has ever dealth with. He knows all about serious health problems and this was the worst.
@Gary Kearney: should protect himself better then! My sister “had” it, she needed to test herself as her colleague was tested positive. My sister had no symptoms, no nothing but still positive. A walk in the park for her
Why is there an * beside schools and nowhere else?? Surely same should apply to household outbreaks??
So what was done worked and the R number is going down. Great news.
So people same its down lets open everything up and screw up all the hard work we have done.
Seriously what are you thinking. The virus is still there and is just waiting to spread again and kill people and leave other with serious health problems for the rest of their lives.
Yet open up because I want to go on holiday or have a pint. We are third lowest in Europe not counting the very small countries the reason for that is what has been done.
@Gary Kearney: You are a complete ccok
It tells us the Irish Government are lying. It tells us they are complicit with a worldwide communist takeover. It tells us they will they are not on our side. It tells us flu is re-labelled as Covid. It tells us the do not want familes together at Christmas. It tells us they are cheating every single man woman and child in the whole of Ireland
Open the golf courses ffs..!
Covid data puts people with underlying conditions, like “I am 92 and dying of cancer” or “help I just got hit by a bus” as deaths from covid. Wake up Ireland and get a grip.
@Martin Mason: not that BS again. Look, if you have terminal cancer and get killed in a car crash… you died of a car crash NOT cancer. This isn’t difficult.
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