The number of hospitalisations of people with Covid-19 last week was a third of the January peak, while the number of admissions to intensive care units has also decreased significantly, according to new analysis by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
In its latest Covid-19 insight bulletin, the CSO said there were 456 hospitalisations of people with the virus in the week ending February 5th, down from the 1,341 people recorded in the week ending January 15th.
The number of ICU admissions also continued to decrease, with 12 admissions last week, down from a peak of 124 in January.
Some 274 people died due to Covid-19 in the week ending February 5th, the CSO said, a decrease of 23 per cent when compared to the previous week.
As has been the case throughout the pandemic, the virus tends to disproportionately affect older people, with 94 per cent of deaths reported last week being people aged 65 years and over.
There were 72 deaths in Dublin in the week ending February 5th, while Cork (34) and Limerick (21) were the only other counties to record more than 20 deaths in the week.
The number of new confirmed cases decreased by 27 per cent week on week, with 5,562 new cases reported last week, down 2,066 on the previous week. Dublin accounted for 1,981 cases or 36 per cent of all new cases.
This is the fourth week in a row that Leitrim recorded less than 50 new cases. This is the second week in a row that Roscommon has recorded less than 50 new cases and the first such week for Longford.
There were 521 health care workers diagnosed in the week ending February 5th, while those aged 65 or over made up 16 per cent of confirmed cases that week, with those aged 25-44 making up 31 per cent.
Asymptomatic cases
The level of asymptomatic cases has risen from 10 per cent to 20 per cent, however this is attributed to the change in the testing regime.
Due to the demand on the testing service in late December only close contacts who were symptomatic received a test. However as the demand for testing has decreased, this decision has been reversed, resulting in a higher level of confirmed asymptomatic cases.
In the last four weeks, 9,048 cases have been linked to an outbreak and of these 4,028 (45 per cent) were in nursing homes, 1,311 (14 per cent) were in hospital or a community hospital/long-stay unit and 798 (9 per cent) were in residential institutions.
The over-80 age group made up 23 per cent of all cases linked to an outbreak over this period.
There were 1,081 cases (12 per cent) linked to an outbreak in the workplace in the last four weeks.
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 2,787 deaths of people with underlying conditions from 29,418 confirmed cases with underlying conditions. The median age of those dying with underlying conditions is 83.
There were 2,585 deaths of people with underlying conditions in the over 65 age group. Of the 243 deaths in the 25-64 age group, 200 had underlying conditions.
In terms of underlying conditions, chronic heart disease was present in 41 per cent of deaths.
However, the CSO warns that due to the recent surge in cases there are a large volume of deaths and cases where underlying conditions are unknown in recent weeks therefore the numbers of cases with underlying conditions in recent weeks are “likely to be underestimated”.
