117 cases of Covid-19 cases reported in Meath today

There have been another 117 cases of Covid-19 cases reported in Meath today.

Public health officials have reported a further 2,608 cases of Covid-19 in Ireland along with an additional 51 deaths.

In total, 181,922 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Ireland, along with 2,818 deaths.

As of 2pm today, 1,943 Covid-19 patients were in hospital with 214 in ICU.

The 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 people stands at 1,441. The R number has reduced to between 0.5 to 0.8.

Of the cases reported today 1,230 are men and 1,346 are women

55% are under 45 years of age

the median age is 42 years old

1,019 cases were in Dublin, 204 in Cork, 135 in Donegal, 132 in Galway, 131 in Kildare, and the remaining 987 cases are spread across all other counties

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said there have been 532 deaths so far in January and “we can unfortunately expect this trend to continue over the coming days”.

Professor Philip Nolan said this evening that the prevalence of Covid-19 has declined in the community from its peak earlier this month but that the figures being recorded are still a cause of serious concern.

The head of NPHET’s Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group also said that the incidence remains high in people over the age of 75 which is a significant concern.

Outbreaks in residential settings and cases in healthcare settings were also described as “worrying” by Professor Nolan.

He said that from now we can expect the number of people in hospital should start to come down, albeit slowly, as cases have “plateaued”.

“The average number of deaths today now exceeds the April wave,” Professor Nolan said.

He said that low levels of contacts have helped to drive the reproduction number down, but that this will be hard to maintain.