THE CHIEF MEDICAL Officer has confirmed a further nine patients diagnosed with Covid-19 have died and there are 46 new cases of the disease in Ireland.

Since the beginning of the outbreak, there have been 24,841 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the country and 1,639 people have died.  

Discussions about the health service’s response to the outbreaks in nursing homes continued today. 

Earlier, HSE CEO Paul Reid acknowledged there were “obvious gaps in clarity” around nursing homes, and that oversight of the private nursing home sector is something that needs to be looked at.

“Whatever the model is in the future, you’ve heard Hiqa express concerns in relation to it… from my perspective the HSE don’t have a direct relationship on a year to year basis, we provide support as required,” Reid said.

Speaking at a Department of Health briefing this evening, CMO Dr. Tony Holohan said that that the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) has produced a paper which shows that Ireland’s mortality rate is low compared to other European countries. 

“Throughout this pandemic NPHET has maintained a consistent focus on mortality, being very aware of the sad toll of lost loved ones on families. A mortality paper was prepared and discussed by NPHET today and identifies that mortality in Ireland has been within the lower range in overall terms compared with other health systems across Europe,” Holohan said. 

Ireland will continue to report both confirmed and probable deaths from COVID-19 in all settings and direct public health measures to limit the burden of mortality. 

Speaking at the same briefing, Professor Philip Nolan of NPHET’s Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group said that Ireland’s effective reproduction number “is currently estimated to be 0.5″.

The effective reproduction number is the number of other people infected by one confirmed case.

- With reporting by Michelle Hennessy