Number of Covid cases in Cork south-central 'extremely worrying'

A CITY councillor has expressed concern over his constituency’s 14-day incidence rate of Covid-19 which stands at three times the national average.

Green Party Councillor Dan Boyle described the latest figures as “extremely worrying” and said that things must be done differently in order to suppress the virus once again.

The figures, which were made available from the Covid-19 Data Hub on Thursday evening, showed case information at LEA level across Ireland between September 29 and October 12.

There was a significant increase in the number of cases of Covid-19 being reported in almost every single Local Electoral Area (LEA) in Cork with Cork City South Central LEA recording the highest 14-day Covid-19 incidence per 100,000 people at 566.4.

The figures are three times that of the 14-day national Covid-19 incidence of 177.2 and more than double the 14-day incidence of 240.5 reported for the LEA last week.

A total of 219 cases of Covid-19 were reported in the area in the 14-days up to October 12, over double the amount of cases reported in the area last week at 93.

Mr Boyle said the Government will consider NPHET’s latest recommendations with “strengthening of whatever level we’re going to be at” required.

“I think it has to be about identifying the behaviours that are bringing about the risks and the biggest risks are wherever people are congregating in relatively large numbers of more than three or four people.

“We have to reduce the circumstances where people are finding themselves with new groups of people of more than three or four people at any given time,” he said.

Mr Boyle said that the latest restrictions in relation to household visits “could be the necessary action needed over the next few weeks or months until we get these figures under control again”.

“The trouble for the Government is that they want to discourage people from congregating in any kind of numbers but they also want to keep life as normal as possible and I think the trick is whatever we do, we do in ones, twos and threes and avoid anything larger than that,” he said.

Mr Boyle said that the virus is being magnified in households even if someone from within a household picks up the virus from outside the home.

“That's why the first point in which most of the infections seem to be identified is in houses and that's why the advice of NPHET needs to be taken particularly seriously,” he said.