Fall in number of Covid-19 outbreaks recorded in State

The number of Covid-19 outbreaks recorded last week fell by 30 to 105, according to the latest HSE update.

The number of nursing home outbreaks was down by two on the previous week to 11, while workplace outbreaks dropped sharply from 28 to 16, the weekly report from the HSE’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) shows.

An outbreak or cluster involves two or more linked confirmed cases.

The nursing home outbreaks comprised a total of 56 cases, including one outbreak involving 37 cases.

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There was a slight drop in hospital outbreaks, from six to five, with a total of 31 related cases reported last week. Two further outbreaks in community hospital/long-term care facilities were reported.

In workplaces, two outbreaks occurred in meat processing, two in other food production, five in construction and seven in “other” locations.

Childcare outbreaks were also slightly down, from 15 to 14, with a total of 56 cases reported. With the education sector largely closed, there were no outbreaks recorded in schools or third-level colleges.

Of four travel-related outbreaks, three were linked to flights and one to a ferry journey.

Among vulnerable groups, there were nine outbreaks in the Traveller community, up from five the previous week.

Other outbreaks were linked to retail (five), hotels (eight), restaurants/cafes (10) and pubs (three).

Since the start of the current wave, there have been 1,205 outbreaks with a total of 4,640 confirmed cases, according to the HPSC.