PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERTS have warned people to adhere to the public-health guidelines after an increase in Covid-19 cases in Limerick was caused by “a lot of large social gatherings” that took place indoors.

In a statement issued on Friday night, the Department of Public Health Mid-West expressed “serious concerns over a rapid increase in Covid-19 cases in Limerick, connected to social gatherings in the past two weeks”.

According to provisional data, there were 11 Covid-19 cases on Sunday, 20 cases on Monday, 22 cases on Tuesday, 38 cases on Wednesday, and 46 new cases on Thursday in Limerick city and county.

Dr Mai Mannix, director of Public Health Mid-West, said that this level of infection had not been seen in the community since early March. 

“We had a marked increase in our Covid case numbers over the past week, rising from 20 on Monday 17 May up to 51 on Friday 21 May,” Dr Mannix told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland today.

We were very concerned at the rapid increase and also that was matched by a rise in our number of inpatients in University Hospital Limerick went up from two on 13th May to 14 on 20th May. 

“It was quite apparent that there were a lot of large social gatherings happening inside and we really wanted to make people aware that that was the case,” she said, explaining why the statement was issued on Friday.

She added that the types of gatherings varied “from birthday parties to end-of-year celebrations for the academic year.

“We had some celebrations due to the Eid festivities recently as well. So a whole range of indoor activities, that is very high risk situation and its not the current public health advice.

“We’re seeing young adults, people in their 30s and 40s, parents of young children, and they are the ones being hospitalised. Luckily our older age group is immunised, so we are not seeing that group being hospitalised or infected to any large extent, but its the younger adults at this point in time.”

Dr Mannix said the British variant is the most common variant in the mid-west, but they have asked that all samples from the latest rise in cases to be whole-genome sequenced.

Cases of other variants disovered in the mid-west region have been in single-digits, Dr Mannix said.

She asked people with no symptoms to avail of the walk-in test centres on the Ballysimon Road, as well as a second pop-up centre in St Joseph’s Hospital in Mulgrave Street, starting on Wednesday.

For those going into work, Dr Mannix said: “Because we’ve had a lot of young adults affected, that spreads out into workplaces. We ask people not to go into work if they have symptoms, and please to wear masks at work, even if social distancing is taking place.”

There were 438 Covid cases reported yesterday, with 381 cases announced on Saturday.