For the third consecutive day, Kilkenny had no new cases of Covid-19 last evening, with less than five in Carlow.
They’re among 761 new infections reported to the Department of Health, while there were 18 more deaths linked to the virus.
The country’s five-day moving average of Covid-19 cases has fallen by eight per cent in the past week to 536.
There were 255 patients with the disease in public hospitals last night, while there were 63 people in intensive care.
One of these was at the unit at St Luke’s General for Carlow and Kilkenny, among three patients with Coronavirus there with two other suspected cases.
UCC Professor Gerry Killeen, who is a founding member of I-SAG which advocates for Zero-Covid believes the country has already entered the fourth wave.
While a top geneticist has been telling KCLR that schools in Kilkenny should have been able to reopen sooner than the rest of the country.
It’s as the county has the second-lowest incidence rate of Covid19 in Ireland, with consistently low case numbers over the last few weeks.
Professor Aoife Mc Lysaght works in the Department of Genetics at Trinity College and on last evening’s The Way It Is with Sue Nunn she said there’s no obvious reason why the virus has come under locally, but more should be done to encourage the trend.
Listen back to that conversation here:
Testing Centres
Four more pop-up walk-in Covid-19 testing centres open this morning in Kildare, Dublin, Galway and Westmeath.
They’re aimed at catching asymptomatic infections of the disease with those without any symptoms encouraged to attend.
Around 14,000 people were tested at similar centres over the past week with a positivity rate of around 3%.
A centre in Crumlin in Dublin will open for seven days from this morning, while facilities at Naas Racecourse in Kildare and Athlone Regional Sports Centre will be available for five days.
A centre in Ballinasloe in Galway will be open for three days.
Vaccine
Forsa has asked the Government to review its decision to remove special needs assistants from the covid vaccine priority list.
The union wants them included under ‘category nine’ on the list because they work in crowded settings where social distancing isn’t possible.
It says including the SNAs who work in schools in this new cohort, wouldn’t cause significant delays to the vaccination of other groups.
Forsa spokesperson, Andy Pike says his members are unhappy about the changes to the list.
While a local TD says the Health Minister has been “remiss” in his handling of the vaccine rollout.
It’s after Stephen Donnelly has come under criticism about figures he’d presented to his party about targets for this month.
The Minister confirmed yesterday that around a million doses will arrive in April – but refused to give an exact figure because of the constantly changing numbers.
Deputy John McGuinness says this is unacceptable, and more clarity is needed.
He’s also calling for more groups to be prioritised in the vaccine rollout and says its vital that teachers are prioritised.
