Covid-19: 330 new cases 19 deaths confirmed in Ireland

330 new cases were also confirmed today.

In total there are 21,506 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

According to data provided by the HPSC:

• 58% are female and 42% are male
• the median age of confirmed cases is 49 years
• 2,825 cases (13%) have been hospitalised
• of those hospitalised, 363 cases have been admitted to ICU
• 6,068 cases are associated with healthcare workers
• Dublin has the highest number of cases at 10,406 (49% of all cases) followed by Kildare with 1,242 cases (6%) and then Cork with 1,164 cases (6%)
• of those for whom transmission status is known: community transmission accounts for 63%, close contact accounts for 34%, travel abroad accounts for 3%

Earlier today, Dr Mary Favier, President of the Irish College of GPs, welcomed the fall in Covid-19 patients receiving treating in intensive care units (ICU).

Dr Favier said: "If people spend time in intensive care, whether they have had a serious operation or something has happened to them, it's often only a couple of days, this (coronavirus) can be a couple of weeks.

"So we'd expect there to be quite a substantial lag from the time people get the disease, to being admitted to hospital, to going into intensive care, to being discharged.

So it is very good that we are starting to see that line starting to come down, because it means that infections of, say, a month ago or six weeks ago were dropping.

The latest figure for patients in ICU is 98, only the second time it has been less than 100 in the last month.

Meanwhile, the HSE is investigating after the family of a person who died from Covid-19 was given the wrong body by a hospital mortuary last weekend.

The incident happened at Mullingar Regional Hospital on Friday, April 24.

Victims of Covid-19 are put in sealed body bags by morticians due to the nature of the disease, with neither families or undertakers allowed to view the remains.