Ireland boasted one of the lowest rates of COVID-19 infection in Europe mere weeks ago, this has changed hugely.
Professor Philip Nolan of the National Public Health Emergency Team estimated that the R number stands at between 2.4 and 3 over the weekend, and said that Ireland was experiencing the fastest rate of growth of the virus to date, which was “unprecedentedly high”. “An optimistic projection is that [COVID-19 figures] are plateauing now and will fall to between 1100 and 2500 by the end of January,” Nolan said.As of 9 January, the 14-day incidence rate of the virus is 1,162 per 100,000 in the population.
Reid confirmed that as of today , there are 1,421 people in hospital with the COVID-19, an increase of 136 since figures were last reported.There are currently 120 people in Ireland’s ICUs with the virus. It shows the cases per million people in Ireland steadily declining between late October and early December, only for numbers to soar over the Christmas period both here and in the UK.
The current vaccine rollout schedule will take a decade; if we turbo charged it, maybe a year or two. There are only two options in the interim & which one we take will affect our lives dramatically. Which is better?