AN alarming 46 new cases of coronavirus were notified in Kerry today which is highest surge in the county for several weeks.
It more than doubles the number of infections recorded yesterday and it brings the total number of people in Kerry to have contracted the virus since last March to 1,164 with 287 infected in the last 14 days alone.
Nationally, three further deaths were recorded to bring the total number of fatalities to 1,933.
An additional 591 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre today and that sees the total number of infections since the outset of the pandemic rise to 64,046.
A total of 302 coronavirus-infected patients were in hospital this afternoon with 38 bring treated in intensive care. There have been 20 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Of the cases notified today, 310 were female and 280 were male with 59 per cent under 45 years of age. The median age is 38.
The most cases this Thursday were 120 in Dublin, 75 in Donegal, 50 in Cork, 46 in Kerry and 44 in Limerick with the remaining 256 cases spread across 20 other counties.
Department of Health Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, said a second surge is now taking place across Europe.
“Ireland and Finland are the only European countries in the EU where reductions in 14-day incidence have been observed. All other countries are increasing,” he stated.
Dr Holohan said Level 5 efforts over the last two weeks have succeeded in further reducing community transmission and disease incidence in Ireland but he warned: “Now is not the time to be complacent. We must keep driving down this disease – we must keep going”.
The 19 to 24-year-old age group has achieved a dramatic reduction in incidence, from 450 per 100,000 to 150 per 100,000 in two weeks.
They have also halved their contacts in the past five weeks and Dr Holohan said everybody needs to recognise efforts of young people and he thanked them.
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