Tomas Doherty and Julie Smyth
“A small but concerning” increase in coronavirus hospital admissions has taken place in recent days, the chief medical officer has warned.
This follows on from a rise in average daily case numbers over the last 10 to 14 days as the Delta variant of Covid takes hold in Ireland.
Dr Tony Holohan said it was “a cause for concern” and will be monitored “closely in the days and weeks ahead.”
Tuesday saw another 397 Covid infections reported to the Department of Health.
There are currently 54 people in hospital with the disease, including 16 in intensive care units.
The national 14-day incidence rate of the disease is 115.5 cases per 100,000 people.
Waterford has the second highest rate in the country at 226, behind Donegal with a rate of 342.4. Carlow has the lowest rate, at 26.3.
The Derry City and Strabane council district is the worst hit area on the island, with an incidence rate of 614.7 cases per 100,000 people over the last 14 days.
An update on the local electoral areas in Waterford is expected on Thursday, last week Dungarvan has the second highest incidence rate nationally with 600.1 cases.
Note: The reported epidemiology of COVID-19 is normally based on the notifications to the Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting (CIDR) system. The cyber-attack on the HSE on 14 May 2021 has prevented the routine notification of cases, associated deaths and outbreaks of COVID-19 to CIDR. As an interim measure, provisional epidemiological reports are based on the information captured by the HSE COVID Care Tracker. Please note that these data do not represent notified cases, and have not undergone the data validation procedures undertaken through CIDR.
