Statement from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre:

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 10 additional deaths related to COVID-19.

All 10 deaths occurred in January.

The median age of those who died is 79 years and the age range is 45-101 years.

There has been a total of 3,317 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight, Sunday 31st January, the HPSC has been notified of 1,062 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 197,553* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today;

• 506 are men / 546 are women
• 57% are under 45 years of age
• The median age is 41 years old
• 335 in Dublin, 137 in Cork, 73 in Wexford, 58 in Galway,54 in Kildare and the remaining 405 cases are spread across all other counties**

As of 2pm today, 1,436 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 207 are in ICU. 38 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said;

While we have experienced very significant improvement in incidence over recent weeks, I am concerned that it appears to be slowing down at much too high a level of infection. People need to take real care in any setting in which they come into contact with others.

In particular, workplaces and retail settings need to review their existing protocols and ensure that their staff and customers are protected as much as possible.

Given the prevalence of the B117 variant and how infectious it is, it is extremely important that people take all preventative measures possible, including staying home.

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community.

The majority of the population are complying with public health advice and staying home according to the nationally representative sample of 1,900 people conducted on behalf of the Department of Health on Monday 1st February, available here. It reveals;

• The level of worry has fallen slightly to 6.6/10, as public concern about health system overload falls back slightly. However, worry over the health of family and friends (3.8/5.0) and the economy (3.5/5.0) remain high.
• There are high levels of reported compliance to the public health advice with 89% of the population saying they are remaining at home rather than going out.
• 62% of people believe the worst of the pandemic is happening now, 15% believe that it is ahead of us, with 15% believing the worst of the pandemic is behind us.

*Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 57 confirmed cases. The figure of 197,553 confirmed cases reflects this.

**County data should be considered provisional as the national Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting System (CIDR) is a dynamic system and case details are continually being validated and updated.

• 7 Day Incidence is 182.6
• 5-day moving average is 1,288

Today’s cases, 5-day moving average of new cases, 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and new cases in last 14 days (as of midnight 31 January 2021) (incidence rate based on Census 2016 county population)

The 5-day moving average of the number of new cases provides an appropriate indicator of current daily case numbers within a county. It takes account of any validation of cases for previous days and smooths out daily/weekend fluctuations in case numbers.

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