NPHET says there will be a “significant” number of deaths linked to Covid19 in the days and weeks ahead.

A further 28 deaths were confirmed last night, bringing the total this month to 208, and some of those who’ve died have been as young as 25.

Health officials also reported 3,955 new cases and nearly as many people have tested positive in the last 2 weeks as in all of 2020.

Of the 3,955 latest to be confirmed covid positive, 47 of them in Carlow with 43 in Kilkenny with the 14-day incidence rate in each county now standing at 1,591 and 1,218 per 100,000 respectively.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn says everyone following the public health advice can stop more people becoming seriously ill.

Hospitals

The number of people in hospital with Covid could fall to 800 by the end of the month.

New projections also show the numbers in intensive care might drop as low as 100.

There are 1,785 patients with the virus in hospital, 32 of them at St Luke’s after four new admissions while there’s one further suspected case there.

Five patients are being treated in the local intensive care unit, among 173 in such facilities nationwide.

Chair of NPHET’s modelling advisory group, Professor Philip Nolan, says there could be significant progress if people follow the rules.

Local Electoral Areas

One in every 17 people in Belmullet local electoral area in Co Mayo tested positive for Covid19 in the space of two weeks.

The region had by far the highest incidence rate in the country.

This data reflects on the 14-day incidence rates of confirmed cases of Covid19 between December 29th and this Monday.

During that period, the country’s rate was 1,410 per 100,000 people, meaning one in every 71 people had the virus.

Twenty areas of the country had rates of over 2,000 per 100,000 people.

Belmullet LEA in Co Mayo had a rate of 6,032, over four times the national average.

There were 760 cases in this region in the two weeks and, with a population of 12,600, it means every 17 people had the virus.

Border regions remained bad and the second highest was Dundalk South LEA in Co Louth, at 3,783, a rate of one in every 26 people.

Adare-Rathkeale LEA in Co Limerick had a rate of 3,118 with one in every 32 people getting infected.

The highest rate locally was in Castlecomer at 1891.4 per 100,000 population followed by Tullow (1,501.2), Carlow Town (1,408.4), Bagenalstown (1,407.5), Kilkenny City (1398.9), Callan Thomastown (958.3) and Piltown (955.8).

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Tax

Thousands of workers who have received the Pandemic Unemployment Payment or the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme are set to face tax bills today

The payments were not taxed in real-time and instead are liable to income tax and USC at the end of the year.

Employees will be given the option to pay partially or in full.

Travel

Travel to the UK from every country in South America, as well as Portugal, has been banned over fears of a new Covid19 variant.

The rules which come in at 4am this morning and does not apply to Irish people using the UK to get a connecting flight, or who live in Britain.

Paul Hunter’s a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia and says they’re still finding out about this variant.

In the US

With less than a week to go until he takes office, President-elect Joe Biden has unveiled a trillion-dollar Covid19 recovery package for the US economy.

If passed by Congress, it would provide every adult in America with a direct payment of $1,400 dollars.

Mr Biden also pledged to vaccinate one hundred million Americans during his first one hundred days in the Oval Office.

Meanwhile, people from ethnic minority groups should be considered clinically extremely vulnerable when it comes to Covid19.

That’s according to a new study by UK and US universities, which found racism to be a “root cause” of ill health in general and increased mortality rates from Covid19.

They say where risk of exposure to the virus is high, members of ethnic minority groups should be supported into non-customer-facing roles.