Covid 19 Numbers in hospital fall below 1,000
over 4 years in The Irish Times
The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has dropped below 1,000 for the first time since the beginning of January.
There are 984 Covid-19 patients in hospital on Thursday morning, of which 167 are in an intensive care unit (ICU).
HSE chief executive Paul Reid said that while the further reduced numbers are “better news again”, there is “nothing normal about these levels and we have a long way to go yet. But at least it feels like we have the wind behind us now.”
There were 35 ICU beds available for adults on Wednesday evening and five for children. St James’s Hospital in Dublin had the highest number of Covid-19 patients last night (90), followed by the Mater Hospital (87).
A further 54 deaths related to Covid-19 were reported by the National Public Health Emergency Team on Wednesday, bringing the total number of deaths of people with the virus to 3,794.
The team also reported a further 1,006 confirmed cases of the disease, bringing the total number of cases of the coronavirus in the State to 205,939.
The national incidence rate of the disease over the past 14 days is 312 cases for every 100,000 with Monaghan, the most infected county, reporting double this, at 624 cases per 100,000.
Counties with the next highest incidence are Waterford with 435 cases per 100,000 people, Carlow with 407.5, Wexford with 406.8 and Dublin with 402.6 cases.
Latest vaccination figures show that an additional 1,000 people received the first dose on Sunday and a further 2,489 people received their second dose that day.
In total, 240,487 doses of the vaccine had been administered as of Sunday, including to 152,654 people who have received their first dose. Of those, 86,833 people had received their second dose.