Biggest number of daily cases since April

There have been over 1,000 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported in the State by midnight Friday.

Responding to the 1,012 new cases, Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said: “I am very worried about the numbers we are seeing and how quickly they are deteriorating.

“All of today’s 1,012 cases were notified to the HPSC over a period of 24 hours up to midnight.

“The 14-day incidence rate has increased from 108 per 100,000 last Sunday to 150 per 100,000 today, which represents a 39% increase

It's the biggest number of daily cases reported since April.

Health Protection Surveillance Centre also today confirmed it had been notified of 3 additional deaths related to COVID-19.

There has been a total of 1,824 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

Of the 1,012 cases notified that 71% are under 45 years of age

241 cases were in Dublin, 112 in Cork, 80 in Cavan, 72 in Meath, 66 in Galway, and the remaining 441 cases are spread across 21 other counties.

As of 2pm today 199 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 31 are in ICU.

Dr Holohon said: “All of the important indicators of the disease are deteriorating. For example, there has been a consistent increase in test positivity over the past week. The test positivity rate up to midnight Friday October 9, was 6.2%, which has more than doubled in less than a fortnight.

“Case numbers are growing across all age groups and throughout the country.”

Dr. Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said; “In the past 24 hours, there have been 35 new admissions of laboratory confirmed cases to hospital and 4 new admissions to ICU. There are now 199 people in hospital and 31 in ICU. Every age group, location and household needs to act now, limit your contacts and stop the disease in its tracks.”