More than 60 cases of Covid confirmed in Cork in last two weeks

MORE than 60 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Cork over the past fortnight, with the HSE moving to remind the public that vaccination remains the “best protection against severe complications” from the virus. 

The HSE’s advice also comes as a new Covid variant, Eris, has been detected in Ireland.

A spokesperson for the HSE told The Echo that the new variant is “more transmissible than previous circulating variants”. 

“There is currently no evidence of increased clinical severity of infection but people are still advised to follow Covid-19 prevention measures,” they added.

Speaking on the situation generally, the spokesperson said there have been waves of increased Covid-19 activity every few months since the start of 2022 but that, to date, waves during the summer period “have generally been of lower magnitude than those in the winter period”.

“The number of patients in ICU that had Covid-19 infection did increase slightly during July, but remains overall low.

“However, as in previous waves, when Covid-19 case numbers increase substantially, there is a corresponding increase [in] hospital and ICU admissions and we are experiencing that now,” they continued.

There have been 66 PCR confirmed cases of Covid in Cork over the past 14 days up to and including Monday, August 7.

It compares with 216 in Dublin, 93 in Limerick and 97 in Kerry over the same period.

The HSE has reiterated the importance of hygiene practices and also stressed the importance of vaccination.

Meanwhile Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he believes the country is “facing a new wave of Covid”, but played down concerns due to the immunity built up in the Irish population.

“There have been a lot of infections and there has been an increase in hospitalisations,” he told reporters in Belfast.

“I don’t anticipate the reintroduction of any restrictions. 

"We’re in a very different place than we were when Covid started.

“A huge amount of natural immunity is built up because people have had the virus and survived it, and recovered from it. And then there’s a huge amount of immunity built up because of vaccination.

“So, it’s not something we’re complacent about in the slightest, but it is a new virus, a virus that we’re going to have to live with, and there will be waves of infection, just like there is with the flu virus, for example.”