1500 people out of one lakh are infected by Covid 19; The reopening of schools may be delayed again

NPHET warns that Covid prevalence rate in Ireland is rising. Death rate averages over 25 per day.

Concerns have also been raised about whether schools could reopen in February if the Covid expansion continues. NPHET says the death toll from Kovid-19 is set to rise sharply in the coming days.

The infection rate rose to 1,497 per lakh. Only the Czech Republic in the European Union has such a bad rate this week.

Meanwhile, a third variant of the virus was found in Brazil, in addition to the UK and South African variants.

But no Brazilian variants have yet been found in Ireland, said Dr Cillian de Gascun, director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory. The State Department has advised against travel to Brazil, as thousands of Brazilians have come to Ireland to work and study.

NPHET said 44% of cases in Ireland since the outbreak of Covid-19 had occurred in the last 14 days.

There were 28 deaths from Covid-19 yesterday, with 3,955 new cases reported. The total death toll in Ireland has risen to 2,488 and the number to 163,057.

The number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals is very high with 1,789 patients in hospitals. 169 are in the intensive care unit. The HSE chief said it was “unprecedented” that there were so many people with a single disease in Irish ICUs.

Philip Nolan, chair professor of the Epidemiological Modeling Group, warned that although people were staying at home, patients were flocking to hospitals earlier this month or in December. Every day there is a serious increase in deaths.

Deputy CMO Dr Ronan Glynn said the question of whether schools could open in February could not be answered at this time, as indicated by Education Minister Normal Foley.