Another 1571 Covid cases confirmed as Holohan says unvaccinated should not attend All-Ireland final

A further 1,571 cases of Covid-19 in the State were confirmed on Tuesday.

A total of 307 coronavirus patients are now hospitalised, and 55 of those are in ICU.

“On average, we have reported 1,814 confirmed cases of Covid-19 per day for the last 5 days. Our 14-day incidence is now 526 per 100,000 population. This is an extremely high incidence of disease circulating in our communities,” said chief medical officer Tony Holohan on Twitter.

Almost 86 per cent of adults are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, while just under 90,000 12- to 15-year-olds have received first doses, the head of the Health Service Executive (HSE) has said.

Paul Reid, HSE chief executive, said 91 per cent of adults were now partially inoculated, awaiting a second dose.

More than 144,000 12- to 15-year-olds had been registered to receive Covid-19 vaccines, with 88,000 doses administered in recent weeks.

There are currently 307 patients in hospital with Covid-19, and 60 in intensive care.

The high numbers in hospitals and ICUs “is still our focus of concern,” Mr Reid said in a post on Twitter. The gap between adults partially and fully vaccinated was continuing to close, he said.

Public health officials expect the State will reach a high level of vaccine protection by mid-September, after which point the numbers of new cases should start to decline.

Speaking at a Nphet briefing on Tuesday, Dr Holohan said unvaccinated people should not be allowed attend the All-Ireland GAA football final and other large outdoor events.

Dr Holohan said public health officials would like to see such events confined to people are vaccinated. And he said people who have not received the Covid-19 vaccine should not attend them.

Croke Park could be filled for the All-Ireland final “four to five times over” by confining tickets to vaccinated people, he pointed out.

For unvaccinated people, there was a “pretty good chance” of running into someone with the disease, Dr Holohan said. The combination of susceptibility and exposure to infected people was “wrong”, he said.

Prof Philip Nolan, chair of the Nphet Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, told the briefing that modelling suggests the current wave of the pandemic here will peak “in the course of” September.

However, he added, the trajectory of the disease remains uncertain and the decline thereafter will be slow.

While 90 per cent of the population have had at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, only 70-75 per cent are at least seven days after a second dose, he pointed out.

Less than half of 16- to 29-year-olds are at least seven days after a second dose.

There is a significant and slowly increasing burden of disease that will pose a challenge for the health service, Prof Nolan said.

The National Public Health Emergency Team is to meet on Wednesday, to provide advice to Government as it considers plans for the further easing of restrictions.

The Cabinet is to finalise a plan on Friday setting out timelines for the further easing of restrictions across several sectors.

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