Offaly, Laois, Tipperary, Clare, Louth, Westmeath, Carlow and Kerry have the highest incidence of Covid-19 in the country.
hey are followed by Waterford, Leitrim, Sligo, Kildare, Limerick, Kilkenny, Donegal and Meath.
The trends, based on people testing positive after PCR tests, come as the number of infections with the virus dropped last week.
There were 11,675 PCR-confirmed cases as of Saturday, down 30.5 percent in a week. The number who registered as positive after a home antigen test was 13,689, a decrease of 36.7 pc.
The county with the lowest incidence is Monaghan, followed by Longford, Mayo, Cork, Wexford, Wicklow, Dublin and Cavan, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Center (HPSC).
There were further encouraging signs yesterday that the summer wave is waning as the number of Covid patients in hospital fell to 740, from 1,018 a week earlier. Of these, 42 were in intensive care.
The seven-day positivity rate for people who received PCR tests was 29.1 percent yesterday, down from 35 percent a week ago.
Meanwhile, in her weekly report delivered to Health Secretary Stephen Donnelly last Friday, Acting Chief Physician Dr. Breda Smyth notes that the number of infections and the number of patients with Covid in hospital has decreased.
She said that on July 12, 47 percent of patients with the virus were there because of complications, and the rest were being treated for other illnesses but were asymptomatic.
Of the 609 patients with Covid, 240 were aged 80 and older, 213 were aged 65 to 79, and 84 were aged 50 to 64. Fifty-six were in the age group of 15 to 49 years and 16 were children 14 years and younger.
Forty-four percent had been boosted with a vaccine, 20pc had only the first round of injection, and more than a third had one or no vaccine.
Of the 213 patients ages 65 to 79 with complications from the virus, 15pc had their second booster vaccine, said Dr. Smyth.
The most critically ill patients were in intensive care and the proportion who became ill directly from the virus had fallen from 38 percent in early July to 35 percent.
Of the critically ill, more than one in ten were unvaccinated and 89 percent were fully vaccinated, the majority of whom had received a booster or supplemental dose.
dr. Smyth said “a significant proportion of detected infections are still identified in older age groups”.
On July 12, just over half of people aged 85 and older, 61 percent of 75- to 84-year-olds and 51 percent of 65- to 74-year-olds took up the offer of a second booster, she added. ready.
dr. Smyth said it is still not clear whether Omicron’s newest offshoot, the BA.2.75 line, which has been detected in India and a number of other countries, can overtake the dominant variants of BA.4 and BA.5 here.
Meanwhile, the number of monkeypox virus cases detected here has risen to 69, with 15 confirmed last week.
They are all males with a median age of 36, although they range from 19 to 65.
Nine cases have been hospitalized so far, two for inpatient care and three for isolation. Information about the others is awaited.
The cases have mainly been seen in gay and bisexual men.
Separately, there have been 20 cases of unknown hepatitis in children to date, but no additional transplants or deaths. The cause is still under investigation.