Statement from the National Public Health Emergency Team - Wednesday 16 February

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 5,268 PCR-confirmed cases of COVID-19.

In addition, on Tuesday 15 February, 4,613* people registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal.

There has been a total of 6,399 deaths related to COVID-19 notified in Ireland. This includes 108 deaths newly notified in the past week (since last Wednesday).* *

As of 8am today, 631 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of whom 62 are in ICU.

• These data are provisional and are not directly comparable with laboratory PCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases registered through the HSE Covid Care Tracker.
• *Following today (16 February 2022), weekly reporting (on Wednesdays) of newly notified deaths related to COVID-19 will no longer occur. Daily reporting of deaths related to COVID-19 will be updated Monday-Friday on the HPSC’s Epidemiology of COVID-19 in Ireland data hub and Ireland’s COVID-19 data hub.

Reporting on the number of notified COVID-19 cases using the HSE-HPSC Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting (CIDR) recommenced on 15 February 2022.

CIDR, as the national surveillance system, is the definitive source for validated data on COVID-19 cases in Ireland which meet Irish and European case definitions.

Due to a surge in disease incidence and the increased turnaround time for processing notifications on CIDR, between 22 December 2021 and 14 February 2022, the daily COVID-19 case number reported publicly was an estimate based on positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR test results uploaded to the HSE COVID Care Tracker (HSE CCT) the preceding day.

The HPSC and surveillance partners continued to notify and process cases and outbreaks of COVID-19 on CIDR over this period. The number of cases reported from CIDR for this time period will differ from the estimates reported based on interim arrangements.

The total cumulative number of cases reported today (based on notifications on CIDR) is lower than the total cumulative number of cases reported on the 14th February 2022 (a combination of CIDR and reported cases from HSE CCT for the period 22 December 2021 and 14 February 2022). This is because on a day-to-day basis the daily number of cases reported from CIDR will differ from the number of positive tests the previous day.

The daily number of positive laboratory tests may include repeat tests of the same person and the timing of when results from different laboratories are uploaded to CIDR also has an impact.