One third of the population now say they are wearing face-coverings as protection against spreading Covid-19, according to a new survey.
The proportion of people saying they wear face-coverings as recommended by public health officials has increased from 28 per cent last week to 34 per cent over the past week, the survey carried out for the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) shows.
“Based on our research to date, almost 1.7 million people are now reporting wearing face coverings in public places,” said deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn. “This is an increase of 6 per cent or almost 300,000 people in a week and shows that the message is getting across.”
Some 41 per cent of women are wearing face-coverings against 26 per cent of men, while 44 per cent of over 55-year-olds are wearing them.
No new deaths of patients with Covid-19 were reported by the National Public Health Emergency Team on Monday. This leaves the total number of Covid-19 deaths in the Republic at 1,706.
NPHET also reported another 18 confirmed cases of the disease at a briefing on Monday, bringing to 25,321 the total number of cases since the outbreak began here at the end of February.
“An analysis of cases reported in the last 14 days tells us that the number of daily cases remains on a downward trend,” chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said. “This combined with hospitalisation and ICU trends indicates that the behaviours adopted by the general public continue to suppress the disease in the community.”
Ireland has one of the lowest rates of excess mortality so far this year compared to last year, according to Dr Holohan.
Figures prepared by NPHET show Ireland has 8 per cent excess mortality, with only Denmark, Germany (both 6 per cent) and Norway (zero) having lower rates. In contrast, excess mortality in Spain and the UK is at 57 per cent.
Ireland stopped experiencing excess mortality at the beginning of May whereas the phenomenon has continued in other countries, he said.
However, Dr Holohan cautioned that it was too early to calculate excess morality comprehensively and more time would have to elapse before firm conclusions could be drawn.
Up to last Saturday, 57 per cent of cases were female and 43 per cent male. A total of 8,130 were associated with healthcare workers.
Of the deaths that have occurred, 91.9 per cent had underlying conditions, 842 involved men and 864 involved women.
There were 23 patients with Covid-19 in ICU on Monday; there have been no admissions since June 9th. There are 78 patients in hospital with the virus, up two on the previous day.
The number of clusters in residential care facilities increased by six since Thursday, to 471; five of the extra cases were in nursing homes. There are now 6,952 cases associated with residential care facilities, up 66 since Thursday; 5,371 are in nursing homes along, up 61.
The number of deaths in residential care facilities stands at 1,075; nursing home deaths number 943. There has been no increase in cases or deaths among at-risk groups such as Roma and Travellers, but 11 further cases in meat plants occurred in meat plants. There are now a total of 1,102 meat plant cases.
There was one further death among the homeless population.
Optimism about the future of the pandemic seems to have peaked, the survey shows. The percentage of adults who feel the worst of the pandemic is behind them has fallen, from 62 per cent to 57 per cent. Meanwhile, the number of people who think Ireland will experience a second wave has risen, from 54 per cent to 61 per cent.
Meanwhile new figures from the Health Service Executive show an additional 25 outbreaks of Covid-19 in private houses have been reported in the space of a day, in further evidence the virus has yet to be fully suppressed.
The number of clusters or outbreaks in private homes increased from 240 to 265 between last Thursday and Friday.
Most of the increase in cases occurred in the north-east, where an additional 18 confirmed cases were reported to the HSE’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre.
An additional six cases in private homes were reported in the mid-west and one further case in the south-east. Case numbers in other regions were stable, according to the HPSC’s latest epidemiological report.
The overall number of disease clusters continues to climb, up from 941 to 970. There was one further outbreak each in nursing homes, residential institutions and hospitals.
Public health doctors have said they expect more cases to occur as restrictions are eased and people move around more, but the steep rise in private home clusters may cause some concern.
Last figures show almost 13 per cent of confirmed cases were hospitalised, 1.64 per cent were admitted to intensive care and 5.72 per cent died.
Cavan, Dublin and Monaghan remain the counties with the highest incidence of the disease. No new cases were reported relating to overseas travel between Thursday and Friday.
