There have been eight Covid-19 related deaths in the past 12 days, the HSE has confirmed.
There had been no reports of Covid deaths since Friday, May 14th, due to the HSE cyberattack.
Speaking at a weekly briefing on Thursday, the HSE’s chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry said there had been eight deaths from Covid-19 in the 12 days from the data breach to Wednesday.
This will bring the total number of Covid-19 deaths recorded in May to 43.
Dr Henry said the number of Covid-19 deaths had “collapsed” as a result of the vaccination programme starting with elderly people, as they are at a much higher risk of dying from the virus.
In the second week of January, there were 2,234 new Covid-19 cases among the over-75 age group.
In the last two weeks, there have been just 65 cases per week in that age group.
“Hospitalisations, deaths and outbreaks — anything associated with the vaccinated populations have collapsed,” Dr Henry said.
He said there is a “steady level” level of the disease at the moment, adding that it is mainly in the under-45s age group.
“The unvaccinated groups are younger people. It [the disease] still has the capacity to do harm, but less so than before.”
The Department of Health has also revised its Covid-19 figures since the cyberattack, in the 12 days since there were 5,133 new cases, an average of 428 a day.
This is 140 more cases than originally reported.
