The Covid-19 pandemic is ‘shrinking‘ and the R number is below 1, according to NPHET.
425 new cases and four additional deaths have been reported today. The five-day moving average is 417 cases, which is almost exactly the same as this day last week.
There have been 61 cases in total of the so-called Indian variant in Ireland, 41 of those are the variant of concern B1617.2.
Professor Philip Nolan, who chairs NPHET’s modelling group, says the country’s going in the right direction and with grounds for ‘optimism‘.
Professor Nolan added that nthe epidemiological situation is stable and we’re seeing the strong effects of vaccination in terms of reducing the severity of disease.
”If anything the level of infection is shrinking slightly so our best estimate of growth rate is zero (in other words no change) and minus two per cent per day, a modest reduction. That equally translates into reproduction number probably being slightly below one, so our best estimate is that its somewhere being point eight and one, reflecting either stability or a slow decline in the level of infection.”
