Dr Tony Holohan reports 'significant improvement' but calls for Covid-19 vigilance

The doctor leading the fight against the Covid-19 in Ireland has urged the Irish people to build on the 'significant improvement' by making choices that will flatten the curve again.  

On day when the National Public Health Emergency Team reported that 16 people have lost their lives to the disease, Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, called on people to continue to work as individuals to ensure the ongoing suppression of the virus is not temporary.

“The significant improvement in the profile of the disease is encouraging: the 14-day incidence of 152 cases per 100,000 is down by 51% compared to the previous two weeks.

“To maintain this positive trajectory, we need to remain vigilant to the highly infectious nature of this virus, which can easily spread from person to person through close contact and by social mixing. Our individual everyday choices to stay at home and keep our contacts to a minimum are vital to driving down the spread of COVID-19,” he said.

Figure up to November 11 show that over 78,000 tests were carried out in the past seven days which is substantially down on the 100,000 tests a week being carried out before Level 5 measures were enforced. 

The percentage of people who tested positive in the last week is also just below the 4% mark for the entire pandemic in Ireland which has seen more than 1.7 million tests completed. There have been nearly 70,000 positive tests since February according to the Covid-19 tracker.