Westmeath has second highest rate of COVID-19 cases over last week

Westmeath has the second highest rate of new Covid cases in the country per population over the last seven days.

New figures by the Health Protection and Surveillance Centre (HPSC) show that there were 825 cases in Westmeath in the seven days up to midnight on November 14. This gives a rate of 929.4 per 100,000 population, the second highest in the country behind Louth.

Figures by local electoral area in Westmeath (Athlone, Moate, Mullingar and Kinnegad) are only available up to November 8 and would therefore not correspond with the rising numbers countywide over the last seven days.

In contrast, Roscommon had the country’s lowest rate of new Covid-19 cases per population over the seven days up to midnight on November 14. There were 272 cases reported in the county, equating to a rate per 100,000 of 421.4. The national average is 603.2 per 100,000.

The growth in cases locally is also evidenced by the rising numbers being treated in Mullingar hospital.

At 8pm on Sunday night, there were 29 patients with Covid-19 being treated at the hospital, three of whom were in ICU beds, along with another three suspected cases.

On Friday, the hospital’s clinical director Dr Murat Kirca told Midlands 103 that the hospital has been struggling to keep up with the number of adults and children presenting with a non Covid-related respiratory virus.

He also said staff are “quite burnt out” and a number have themselves contracted Covid-19. On Monday, hospital director Kay Slevin said that the hospital’s emergency department (ED) – including its paediatric ED – has sustained extremely high demand over the last number of weeks, due to both non-Covid and Covid positive patients presenting to the hospital.

“To date, Regional Hospital Mullingar has been able to maintain services,” she said, adding that this was testament to the commitment of the staff, who have been working under the most severe pressures.

Ms Slevin confirmed that due to the high levels of Covid-19 in the community, the hospital has been forced to curtail patient visiting on the general wards as a precautionary measure.

This, she said, was in order to protect the safety of patients and staff and to help reduce the spread of infection. However, she continued, the current maternity visiting arrangements, are similar to what had been in place pre-Covid.

“Staff and management would again ask the public to consider their care options before presenting at the hospital’s emergency department. Please speak to your GP, pharmacist or doctor on call before coming to the hospital. Patients who do come to ED and are not triaged as seriously ill, may need to wait for a long period to be seen. Adult and Paediatric patients who require urgent care will be prioritised,” she said.