ANOTHER 47 deaths and 1,466 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed today, including 18 new infections in Kerry.
There has been a total of 3,167 coronavirus related deaths in Ireland with the number of people known to have contracted the virus now rising to 192,645.
The median age of those who died is 85 and the age range of the fatalities is from 55 to 99.
Early this afternoon 1,567 patients were being treated in in hospital for Covid-19 complications with 216 in intensive care and 69 more admitted to hospital in the past 24 hours.
Of today’s cases, 764 are female, 697 are male and 55 per cent are under 45 years of age.
472 of today’s newly diagnosed cases were in Dublin, 106 in Galway, 103 in Cork, 77 in Waterford and 70 in Limerick with the remaining 638 cases spread across all other counties, including the 18 in Kerry.
Department of Health Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, said it is positive to see the number of people hospitalised reducing and a stabilisation of numbers in intensiove care but he stressed that high mortality is still a real concern 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,” he said.
Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said a suppression of the transmission rate has been achieved with the R number – the number of people likely to b infected from a known Covid-19 positive case – 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,” he said.
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