Key Findings:
Table A: Weekly Profile of COVID-19 1,2,3,4 | ||||||||||||
15/01 | 22/01 | 29/01 | 05/02 | 12/02 | 19/02 | 26/02 | 05/03 | 12/03 | 19/03 | 26/03 | 02/04* | |
Total Cases | 18,815 | 10,814 | 8,225 | 6,647 | 5,625 | 5,131 | 4,264 | 3,308 | 3,601 | 3,746 | 3,816 | 3,010 |
% over 65 | 16% | 16% | 18% | 15% | 11% | 11% | 10% | 8% | 8% | 9% | 7% | 6% |
% asymptomatic | 15% | 18% | 17% | 22% | 24% | 25% | 24% | 26% | 25% | 23% | 27% | 30% |
Number in hospital at week end | 1,846 | 1,969 | 1,552 | 1,258 | 959 | 754 | 574 | 426 | 344 | 336 | 317 | 264 |
Number in ICU at week end | 187 | 218 | 213 | 181 | 173 | 153 | 136 | 100 | 86 | 87 | 66 | 62 |
Total confirmed COVID-19 deaths | 315 | 407 | 423 | 348 | 252 | 179 | 122 | 65 | 51 | 45 | 35 | 29 |
* latest week is preliminary | ||||||||||||
1 Table includes data as of 7th April 2021 for events created on CIDR (Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting) up to midnight Friday 2nd April 2021 and https://covid-19.geohive.ie/ and is subject to revision | ||||||||||||
2 Cases data are defined by epidemiological date which is the earliest of onset date, date of diagnosis, laboratory specimen collection date, laboratory received date, laboratory reported date and event creation/notification date. Deaths data are defined by date of death | ||||||||||||
3 Hospitalisation numbers include those admitted to hospital due to COVID-19 and those who contracted COVID-19 while in hospital | ||||||||||||
4 Deaths include those who died of COVID-19 and those who died with COVID-19 |
This is the twenty-eighth publication in our series of information bulletins produced by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), that aim to provide insights into those who have either died from or contracted COVID-19, by using data from the Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting (CIDR) provided to the CSO by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre and data from the HSE’s Swiftcare (A2i) and COVID Care Tracker (CCT) systems. This Bulletin covers the period from 28 February 2020 to 02 April 2021.
Deaths
For the week ending 02 April, 29 deaths were recorded among confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Throughout the pandemic, most deaths have occurred in the older age groups. In the week ending 02 April 2021, 86% of deaths were in people aged 65 years and over.
There were 16 deaths in Dublin in the week ending 02 April. No other counties recorded more than five deaths in the week.
From Table B we can see the overall mortality rate is 19 per 1,000 confirmed cases. This was highest in April 2020 at 77 per 1,000 confirmed cases. The mortality rate was 4 per 1,000 in March 2021, down from 13 in February 2021. (Note: These figures may need to be revised as there is a time lag between onset of symptoms and death.)
Confirmed Cases
For the week ending 02 April, the number of weekly cases was 3,010, a decrease of 21% from the previous week.
Those aged 25-44 made up 34% of confirmed cases in the week ending 02 April with those aged 65 and over making up 7%.
There were 71 health care workers diagnosed in the week ending 02 April, this is the lowest weekly figure since the week ending 21 August 2020.
Dublin accounted for over two-fifths (1,337) of all new cases for the week ending 02 April and it was the second week in a row that weekly cases in Dublin have fallen. Kildare was the county with the second highest number of new cases (176) for the week ending 02 April.
0-14 years | 15-24 years | 25-44 years | 45-64 years | 65-79 years | 80 years and over | |
05/02 | 794 | 1104 | 2112 | 1657 | 518 | 462 |
12/02 | 880 | 1112 | 1818 | 1223 | 369 | 223 |
19/02 | 809 | 1092 | 1579 | 1092 | 333 | 226 |
26/02 | 751 | 865 | 1314 | 926 | 239 | 168 |
05/03 | 598 | 613 | 1116 | 707 | 203 | 71 |
12/03 | 720 | 713 | 1177 | 700 | 223 | 67 |
19/03 | 934 | 525 | 1289 | 669 | 237 | 92 |
26/03 | 997 | 548 | 1314 | 705 | 190 | 62 |
02/04 | 726 | 475 | 1024 | 596 | 139 | 50 |
Figure 2 shows how although the number of new cases has fallen nationally by 21%, this varies across counties from a 62% decrease in Kilkenny to a 107% increase in Monaghan.
% change | |
Carlow | -42 |
Cavan | -7 |
Clare | -53 |
Cork | 41 |
Donegal | -53 |
Dublin | -17 |
Galway | -23 |
Kerry | 38 |
Kildare | -26 |
Kilkenny | -62 |
Laois | 11 |
Leitrim | -45 |
Limerick | -39 |
Longford | -44 |
Louth | -31 |
Mayo | 10 |
Meath | -27 |
Monaghan | 107 |
Offaly | -40 |
Roscommon | -7 |
Sligo | -33 |
Tipperary | -44 |
Waterford | -22 |
Westmeath | 6 |
Wexford | -40 |
Wicklow | -29 |
Hospitalisations
Hospitalisations have been decreasing since the peak of 1,391 in the week ending 15 January to 103 hospitalisations in the week ending 02 April. ICU admissions have also decreased from the peak of 133 in the week ending 08 January to less than five in the week ending 02 April.
Throughout the whole period of the pandemic from March 2020 to week ending 02 April 2021, the over 65 age category accounted for 55% of all persons hospitalised.
From Table B, it can be seen that the hospitalisation rate was 49 and the ICU rate was four per 1,000 confirmed cases in March 2021 (Note: These figures may need to be adjusted if someone’s condition worsens as there is a time lag between onset of symptoms and hospitalisation.)
Mortality Rate | Hospitalisation Rate | ICU Rate | ||
March | 45 | 156 | 25 | |
April | 77 | 115 | 13 | |
May | 41 | 110 | 10 | |
June | 40 | 101 | 0 | |
July | 0 | 40 | 0 | |
August | 4 | 26 | 4 | |
September | 7 | 36 | 5 | |
October | 7 | 35 | 4 | |
November | 18 | 74 | 6 | |
December | 9 | 32 | 4 | |
January | 22 | 57 | 5 | |
February | 13 | 69 | 6 | |
March | 4 | 49 | 4 |
Table B: COVID-19 Mortality, Hospitalisation and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission rates (per 1,000 confirmed cases) by Month | ||||||||||||||
All cases | ||||||||||||||
2020 | 2021 | |||||||||||||
March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December | January | February | March* | All months | |
Mortality Rate | 45 | 77 | 41 | 40 | .. | 4 | 7 | 7 | 18 | 9 | 22 | 13 | 4 | 19 |
Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Rate | 25 | 13 | 10 | .. | .. | 4 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 6 |
Hospitalisation Rate | 156 | 115 | 110 | 101 | 40 | 26 | 36 | 35 | 74 | 32 | 57 | 69 | 49 | 57 |
Hospitalisation Rate by age | ||||||||||||||
0-24 years | 63 | 39 | 25 | .. | 37 | 8 | 11 | 8 | 11 | 9 | 12 | 17 | 14 | 13 |
25-44 years | 69 | 44 | 36 | 68 | 16 | 16 | 14 | 17 | 30 | 13 | 20 | 34 | 29 | 24 |
45-64 years | 141 | 102 | 94 | 126 | 66 | 30 | 50 | 38 | 69 | 33 | 47 | 74 | 60 | 55 |
65-79 years | 401 | 284 | 378 | 347 | 108 | 111 | 157 | 156 | 308 | 122 | 204 | 288 | 223 | 213 |
80 years and over | 427 | 176 | 274 | 127 | .. | 290 | 215 | 275 | 433 | 265 | 288 | 363 | 474 | 283 |
* latest month is provisional | ||||||||||||||
1 Table includes data as of 7th April 2021 for events created on CIDR (Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting) and is subject to revision | ||||||||||||||
2 Cases defined by epidemiological date which is the earliest of onset date, date of diagnosis, laboratory specimen collection date, laboratory received date, laboratory reported date and event creation/notification date |
Contacts
In Table 5, the average number of contacts per positive case per week was three in the week ending 02 April 2021. This implies details of more than 9,000 close contacts were recorded in the week.
Dublin and Offaly were the counties with the highest average number of contacts per positive case at four for the week ending 02 April 2021.
Outbreaks
Public Health report outbreaks to HPSC and link cases to these outbreaks. Public Health are prioritising the reporting of outbreaks in key settings e.g. RCFs, hospitals. Therefore, the number of private house outbreaks is underestimated. Similarly, while every effort is being made to link cases to outbreaks as quickly as possible, there can sometimes be a delay in linking cases to the outbreak.
From Table 7 it can be seen that in the last four weeks 4,930 cases have been linked to an outbreak. The under 24 age group made up 41% of all cases linked to an outbreak over this period. There were 1,798 cases (36%) linked to an outbreak in private houses and 585 cases (12%) linked to an outbreak in the workplace in the last four weeks.
Also 122 (2%) cases were in nursing homes, 280 (6%) were in hospital or a community hospital/long-stay unit and 216 (4%) were in residential institutions.
Referrals and Testing
In Table 9, there were 95,790 referrals for community testing where a valid reservation was recorded in the week ending 02 April. Referrals for testing increased in the last week and there was an increase, from 28,454 to 35,891, in referrals among the 25 – 44 age group. Some 60% of referrals were from GPs in the week ending 02 April, this is a decrease from 79% in the week ending 01 January. Analysis on referral speciality type shows that general COVID-19 testing has increased by 6,152 and healthcare / essential worker testing has increased by 7,563 in the week ending 02 April.
Weekly testing numbers from HSE labs and hospitals show there were 128,935 tests completed in the week ending 02 April. The positivity rate in the week ending 02 April was 3.2%, down from 3.7% the previous week.
Industry of Employment
In Table 10, the CSO has used Revenue PAYE Modernisation system data to provide insight on employment status of COVID-19 cases. Using pseudonymised keys over 80% of CIDR cases could be linked to administrative data sources, of these approximately 50% had a record of employment. As well as the strict legal protections set out in the Statistics Act, 1993, and other existing regulations, we are committed to protecting individual privacy and all identifiable information from each of the data sources used in our analysis, such as name, date of birth and addresses, are removed before use and only anonymised statistical aggregates are produced.
By matching the month the COVID-19 case is reported to a record of employment in that month (or most recently available record of employment, currently January for cases reported in February, March and April) the results attempt to reflect the industry of an employee when they became a positive case in the CIDR system. However, this does not indicate that the case is linked to an outbreak in the workplace.
In Figure 4, it can be seen that 19% of reported cases with a record of employment in the week ending 03 April were employed in the Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles sector. The Human health and social work activities and Public administration and defence; compulsory social security sectors combined now account for 17% of cases, down from 25% in the week ending 30 January.
Cases week ending 03 April 2021 | |
Agriculture, forestry & fishing (A) | 1 |
Industry (B-E) | 11 |
Construction (F) | 6 |
Wholesale and retail trade (G) | 19 |
Transportation and storage (H) | 5 |
Accommodation and food service activities (I) | 6 |
Information and communication (J) | 3 |
Financial, insurance and real estate activities (K-L) | 6 |
Professional, scientific and technical activities (M) | 5 |
Administrative and support service activities (N) | 9 |
Public administration and defence (O) | 8 |
Education (P) | 7 |
Human health and social work activities (Q) | 9 |
Other nace activities (R-U) | 3 |
Unknown | 2 |
For further COVID-19 related information go to the CSO COVID-19 Information Hub
Full statistical tables can be downloaded here:
Table 2: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 28 - Table 2-2A (XLS 37KB)
Table 3: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 28 - Table 3-3A (XLS 47KB)
Table 4: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 28 - Table 4-4A (XLS 50KB)
Table 6: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 28 - Table 6-6A (XLS 27KB)
Table 7: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 28 - Table 7-7A (XLS 63KB)
Table 9: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 28 - Table 9. (XLS 20KB)