Covid: 49 deaths, 1,466 new cases with 68 in Mayo

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 47 additional deaths related to Covid-19, 46 occurring in January.

The median age of those who died is 85 years and the age range is 55-99 years.

There has been a total of 3,167 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight on Wednesday the HPSC registered 1,466 new confirmed cases, the total now standing at 192,645.

They include 68 in Mayo, now with 953 over the past two weeks.

It gives the county a 14-day incidence rate of 730.2 - the sixth highest in the country and above the natiional average of 621.9.

Mayo's moving five-day average is 43.

Of the other cases notified today:

697 are men and 764 are women

55% are under 45 years of age

the median age is 41 years old

472 in Dublin, 106 in Galway, 103 in Cork, 77 in Waterford, 70 in Limerick and the remaining 638 cases are spread across all other counties

As of 2 p.m. today, 1,567 Covid-19 patients were hospitalised with 216 are in ICU.

There have been 69 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, stated: "Incidence is falling but remains high.

"It is positive to see numbers of people hospitalised reducing and a stabilisation of numbers in ICU.

"However, we are continuing to experience high mortality with 878 deaths so far in January.

"I am concerned about the high incidence we are seeing in long-term care settings and vulnerable groups.

"Our efforts to stay home and break transmission of the disease will save lives. Please continue to follow the public health advice and support each other to keep going."

Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said: "Incidence is falling and by working collectively to reduce contacts, we have achieved suppression of transmission with the R number estimated at 0.4-0.7.

"We are maintaining an extraordinary effort but still we have a long way to go.

"We must maintain full suppression for several weeks if we are to achieve strategic options for the future.

"If we keep this up, we would be down to 200-400 cases per day by the end of February."