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No further deaths from Covid-19, 11 additional cases

There is 25,892 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland
There is 25,892 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland

No further deaths have occurred from Covid-19 in Ireland meaning the death toll remains at 1,764.

Eleven more cases of the coronavirus have been diagnosed in the Republic, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 25,892.

Over the past 14 days, the total number of confirmed cases notified to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre is 196.

Of these cases 52% are male and 47% are female.

The median age is 37 years old while 58% of these cases were between people aged between 25 and 55 years of age.

23 counties reported new cases. Dublin accounted for 62% of these cases, Kildare 10%, Cork 4% and Meath 4%.

9% of the cases were travel related, 34% were close contacts of a confirmed case and 32% were reported as community transmission.

In Northern Ireland there has been no coronavirus-related deaths for 14 consecutive days, so the official toll remains at 556.

There was 21 new cases recorded over the past three days in the region, bringing the cumulative total cases to 5,912.

The National Public Health Emergency Team is working on guidance for parents and schools on how to manage common illnesses in children in the context of Covid-19.

Dr Siobhán Ní Bhríain, Consultant Psychiatrist and Integrated Care Lead for the HSE, said they recognised this was a very important area and they understood parents were anxious about it.

She urged parents to be vigilant as children return to school in September. She urged parents to make contact with their GP if their child was sick, or if they had concerns in relation to a respiratory illness. Dr Ní Bhríain said the GP would advise on what to do next.

She said it was important to make contact with the GP, even if the parent does not think the child has Covid-19 and presumed it was just an ordinary head cold.

Dr Ní Bhríain's comments come as the Government confirmed that funding of €375m will be made available to re-open schools next month.

Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said if Covid-19 was controlled in the community that was the best way of preventing a spread into schools or other workplaces.

He said they were expecting further and updated guidance from the European Centre for Disease Control over the coming fortnight, specifically in relation to the risk associated with the spread from children and the impact on children. And he said this would significantly inform decisions made over the coming weeks.


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Dr Glynn said now was not the time to relax guidance on foreign travel.  

He said the advice remained that people should not travel abroad. 

As things stood, he said, things were deteriorating not alone globally, but also in Europe. He said he was not sure that being conservative in the context of a global pandemic was the wrong direction to take. 

Dr Glynn said there were probably 196 active cases in the country at the moment, given the number that had arisen in the past 14 days.

The R number was above 1 - so although Ireland had a very low incidence of the virus, it was not being suppressed and NPHET's concerns had not gone away. He said things could change very quickly. 

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly tweeted that there were fewer cases of Covid last week (124) than the preceding week (143) - the first time in a month that case numbers had decreased.

Dr Glynn said it was heartening to see how people had responded to words of caution over the last fortnight.

He said that needed to continue over the next month, so Ireland could be in the best possible position if we faced some of the issues other countries are facing.  

Dr Glynn said that Melbourne in Australia was illustrative of how quickly a stable situation could deteriorate.  

He asked people not to be complacent. He said there was a real opportunity in this country to stay in a really good place. 

Meanwhile, there has been a further reduction in the numbers receiving the Pandemic Unemployment Payment.

Public transport seeing slower recovery than road traffic - CSO

Elsewhere, new figures from the Central Statistics Office show that since the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, the volume of cars on our roads is returning to pre-pandemic levels

Today's CSO figures also show the volume of HGVs is now greater than it was for the same time last year in both Dublin and in the regional locations measured.

Traffic counter data from selected sites shows that the volume of cars for the week starting 12 July was just 16.1% lower in regional locations and 20% lower in Dublin than the same week in 2019.

The CSO noted that public transport volumes are recovering at a much slower rate than road traffic. 

The number of journeys on public transport dropped dramatically since the Covid-19 crisis started with journeys by rail most severely hit.