Key Findings:

• Dublin and Kildare made up 59% of all new cases; 361 cases for the week ended 21 August
• The average number of contacts per case has increased from less than three in May to more than six in the week ending 14 August
• The number of people who have died from COVID-19 is below 10 for the last eight weeks
• The number of weekly confirmed COVID-19 cases is more than 600 cases in each of the last three weeks up to the week ending 21 August
• The median age of new confirmed COVID-19 cases was 30 years old for the week ending 21 August - the lowest since cases were recorded
• The week ending up to and including 21 August was the second consecutive week that Dublin had more than 150 weekly cases
• Kerry, Leitrim, Sligo and Westmeath recorded no new cases in the week ending 21 August
• This is the fourteenth week in a row that Mayo and Westmeath have recorded less than 10 new cases, fifteenth such week for Leitrim and Longford, the sixteenth such week for Kerry and the seventeenth such week for Waterford
• Women and those aged between 25-44 continue to account for the highest number of confirmed cases
• More than half (53%) of confirmed cases are now linked to an outbreak, while workplace outbreaks have increased from 3% to 12% since mid-April
• Health care workers continue to make up almost a third of all cases.
• In the period 12 June to 26 August, at least seven Electoral Divisions have had more than 1,000 confirmed cases per 100,000 population, at least four of these being electoral divisions in Co. Kildare
• There has been an increase in cases among those living in Electoral Divisions where the median household income is between €40,000 and €50,000

This is the tenth publication in our series of information bulletins produced by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), that aims to provide insights into those who have either died or contracted COVID-19, by using data from the Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting (CIDR) provided to the CSO by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.

Contacts

An analysis of contacts from the HSE’s Covid Care Tracker (CCT) system shows that the average number of contacts per positive case per week has increased from less than three contacts in May to more than six in the week ending 14 August. There was very little difference in the number of contacts across different age categories in May, however, over the following months this changed and now the 15-24 age group has an average of more than 11 contacts, while for the over 80s, the average number of contacts has remained at just over two.

Deaths

The data produced by the CSO in Table 2 is based on the Actual Date of Death. Using this method, the CSO has found that while the number of people who have died from COVID-19 is below 10 for the last eight weeks, Dublin remains the hardest hit.

The total number of people who have died from COVID-19 is 1,525, with a further 251 deaths cited as probable deaths linked to the virus. For the week ending 21 August, less than five deaths were recorded.

The virus claimed the lives of 25 more men than women up to and including the week ending 21 August. It also continues to have a greater impact on the older age groups, with 65% of all confirmed COVID-19 deaths to date in the 80 years old or older age group.

Confirmed Cases

The number of weekly confirmed COVID-19 cases is more than 600 cases in each of the last three weeks up to and including 21 August. The total number of confirmed cases is 28,036. The number of cases for the week ending 21 August is 616, an increase of five from the previous week.

More than half (53%) of all confirmed cases are now linked to an outbreak. The median age of total confirmed COVID-19 cases is now 46 years old.

Some 3,513 more females were diagnosed with COVID-19 than males.

The 25-44 age group still show the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 9,803.

Health care workers continue to make up almost a third of all cases.

The median age of new confirmed COVID-19 cases was 30 years old for the week ending 21 August, the lowest since cases have been recorded.

The week ending up to and including 21 August was the second week in a row that Dublin had more than 150 weekly cases since the middle of May. There were 248 new cases diagnosed in Dublin in the week ending 21 August, down from the peak of 1,848 cases in the week ending 27 March.

Dublin and Kildare made up 59% of all cases for the week ended 21 August.

This is the fourteenth week in a row that Mayo and Westmeath have recorded less than 10 new cases.

This is the fifteenth week in a row that Leitrim and Longford have recorded less than 10 new cases.

This is the sixteenth week in a row that Kerry have recorded less than 10 new cases and the seventeenth such week for Waterford.

Hospitalisations

Last week, the week ending 21 August, 15 people were hospitalised, down from 666 people at the peak, the week ending 27 March. For the fourteenth week in a row there have been less than five people admitted to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). (Note: These figures may need to be adjusted if someone’s condition worsens as there is a time lag between onset of symptoms and hospitalisation.)

Outbreaks

There have been 14,976 positive COVID-19 cases linked to an outbreak, which is defined as two or more cases in the same location and time. Women account for 54% of all cases linked to an outbreak.

One fifth (20%) of outbreaks affected those aged 80 years and older compared with 14% of all cases. The median age of confirmed cases related to an outbreak is 50.

Nursing Homes accounted for 41% of all confirmed cases related to an outbreak. This has decreased from a peak of 49% in late April.

Hospitals, residential institutions and nursing homes account for 57% of all cases linked to an outbreak.

The workplace now accounts for 12% of cases linked to an outbreak up from 3% in mid-April.

For the week ended 21 August, 58% of cases associated with outbreaks were male and 73% of cases were under 44 years old. More than one in four (42%) cases associated with outbreaks were linked to private houses and 40% to the workplace.

Dublin, Kildare and Tipperary made up 71% of all cases linked to an outbreak for the week ended 21 August.

Underlying Conditions

There have been 1,449 deaths of people with underlying conditions from 10,571 confirmed cases with underlying conditions. The median age of those dying with underlying conditions is 83.

There were 1,344 deaths of people with underlying conditions in the over 65 age group. Of the 111 deaths in the 25-64 age group, 103 had underlying conditions.

In terms of underlying conditions, chronic heart disease was present in 45% of deaths.

Electoral Division analysis

The Electoral Division (ED) analysis in Tables 4 and 4A show that people living in our cities were worst affected at the start of the pandemic accounting for 44% of all cases. However, for cases confirmed in July and August, this has fallen to 34%. Over the same period, 22% of cases have been in Independent Urban Towns. This is higher than the rate of 14% of all cases in these communities since the pandemic began highlighting the movement of cases from our cities to Independent Urban Towns.

The analysis also shows a movement in the income levels of households affected. The CSO has also found those living in ED’s where  the median household income is €60,000 or more accounted for more than 23% of all cases since the pandemic began, but in the last two months this has decreased to just 16% of cases. Cases among those living in ED's where the median household income is between €40,000 and €50,000 have increased over this period accounting for 36% of cases in the last two months compared to 27% of all cases since the start of the pandemic. The data also shows that there has been an increase in the proportions of cases in areas of higher working age welfare dependency in the last two months.

The CSO this week is also publishing data in Table 9 at Electoral Division (ED) level detailing the changes in rates of cases from 12 June up to 26 August for all ED's where an increase of more than five cases has been reported in the period. From this we can learn that there has been 143 EDs which have had more than five confirmed cases over the period. Looking at Rates of cases per 100,000 of population, there have been at least seven EDs which have had more than 1,000 confirmed cases per 100,000 population in the period since 12 June, at least four of these being electoral divisions in Co. Kildare. (Note : For a proportion of notified ED cases, the ED may reflect the individual's place of work rather than home address)

Excess Mortality

Excess mortality is a term used in epidemiology and public health that refers to the number of deaths above and beyond what we would have expected to see under ‘normal’ conditions. It is used to measure the mortality impact of a crisis when not all causes of death are known. Following up on the CSO’s recent report on excess mortality using public data sources ( https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-covid19/covid-19informationhub/health/measuringmortalityusingpublicdatasources/), further analysis of death notices indicates an excess mortality of between 850 and 900, for the period 1 March 2020 to July 31 2020 inclusive.

The fall in excess mortality is due to less people dying (of all causes) than would have been expected, in the absence of COVID-19.

For further COVID-19 related information go to the CSO COVID-19 Information Hub

Full statistical tables can be downloaded here:

Table 2: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 10 - Table 2-2A (XLS 22KB)

Table 3: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 10 - Table 3-3A (XLS 27KB)

Table 4: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 10 - Table 4-4A (XLS 24KB)

Table 6: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 10 - Table 6-6A (XLS 19KB)

Table 7: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 10 - Table 7-7A (XLS 33KB)

Table 9: COVID-19 Deaths and Cases Series 10 - Table 9 (XLS 18KB)