Statement from the National Public Health Emergency Team - Wednesday 24 February

From Department of Health 

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 56 additional deaths related to COVID-19.

31 of these deaths occurred in February, 13 occurred in January, 3 in December or earlier, while a further 9 are under investigation.

The median age of those who died was 82

years and the age range was 16 - 97 years.

There has been a total of 4,237 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight Tuesday 23 February, the HPSC has been notified of 574 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There has now been a total of 216,870* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

(*Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 4 confirmed cases. The figure of 216,870 cases reflects this.)

Of the cases notified today:

• 285 are men and 287 are women
• 67% are under 45 years of age
• the median age is 34 years old
• 175 in Dublin, 57 in Limerick, 43 in Kildare, 37 in Galway, 35 in Meath and the remaining 227 cases are spread across 18 other counties

As of 8am today, 652 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 137 are in ICU. There have been 35 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Numbers of people vaccinated

As of last Sunday (21 February), there have been 353,971 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered in Ireland:

• 222,073 people have received their first dose
• 131,898 people have received their second dose

Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said:

"We continue to see good progress, but this needs to be sustained. It is vital that we get our children back to school over the coming weeks. A key part of making this a success will be our continued collective buy-in to the public health measures that are tried and tested. Stay at home, work from home where possible.

"Given the increased transmissibility of the virus now, we must continue to limit our social contacts and do all we can to starve this disease of opportunities to spread."

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community, including daily data on Ireland’s COVID-19 Vaccination Programme.

County-by-county cases and incidence rates

• the 7 day incidence is 108.4
• the 5-day moving average is 700

County	Today's cases (to midnight 23/2/21)	5 day moving average	14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population	New cases during last 14 days
Ireland	574	700	231.4	11,017
Offaly	7	22	415.6	324
Galway	37	43	327.4	845
Dublin	175	255	314	4,231
Laois	18	16	292.8	248
Monaghan	0	9	286.7	176
Longford	17	8	286.3	117
Kildare	43	42	273.7	609
Limerick	57	43	272.4	531
Louth	<5	26	271.6	350
Mayo	21	24	265.1	346
Waterford	21	21	262.5	305
Westmeath	14	16	261.3	232
Cavan	10	11	244.2	186
Meath	35	27	238.9	466
Carlow	8	8	212.5	121
Tipperary	17	24	188	300
Leitrim	0	2	174.8	56
Donegal	21	20	160.8	256
Clare	15	15	159.1	189
Wexford	5	8	142.3	213
Roscommon	0	5	119.3	77
Wicklow	10	13	106	151
Sligo	<5	4	103.8	68
Kilkenny	5	8	98.8	98
Cork	21	23	83.6	454
Kerry	11