Covid-19 update: ‘We cannot afford to drop our guard now’

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

There has been a total of 2,102 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight Tuesday, December 8, the HPSC has been notified of 227 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 74,900 confirmed cases in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today;

98 are men / 129 are women
64% are under 45 years of age
The median age is 37 years old

There were70 in Dublin, 26 in Donegal, 19 in Limerick,14 in Louth, 14 in Kilkenny and the remaining 84 cases are spread across 17 other counties.

As of 2pm today 224 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 38 are in ICU. 14 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: “Today we have seen eight new admissions to ICU, the most in a 24 hour period since the spring time.”

“Covid-19 is still an extremely infectious disease which has the potential to lead to hospitalisation and even ICU admissions.

“Ireland has managed to suppress COVID-19 to the lowest incidence levels in the EU in recent weeks. We have managed to keep up our safe behaviours and worked to protect each other throughout the pandemic.

“If we do not continue to suppress the disease through the actions we have learned over recent months, we will very quickly see a surge in infections leading to an increase in hospitalisations, ICU admissions and, tragically, deaths.

“We are actively planning to begin vaccinating people in early 2021. We cannot afford to drop our guard now.”