The median age of new confirmed cases was 42 for that week and the 25-44 age group showed the highest number, at 59,510. The median age for all cases is 38. Galway has the lowest median age at 31 while Wicklow is highest at 42.
Hospitalisations
More than 50 people have died due to COVID-19 in each of the last three weeks, with Dublin the worst-hit county.
In the last two weeks there has been an increase in the number of cases in the over-65s, making up 15% of confirmed cases in the week ending 15 January
Hospitalisations have been increasing since the week ending 11 December and were 828 in the week ending 8 January, the highest recorded.
Time lag
A time lag between onset of symptoms and hospital admissions and trends in confirmed cases in hospitals suggest that the numbers reported for recent weeks will be revised upwards and thus are marked as provisional.
The average number of contacts per positive case per week was two in the week ending 15 January, down from four contacts in late December.
Revised CSO methodology to estimate epidemiological, or symptom onset, date shows a surge in COVID cases beginning around 20 December.
The surge began to slow around 28 December, peaked on 30 December (5,749 cases) and on 4 January a turning point was reached with daily cases beginning to fall.
Regime
From 1 January the testing regime was changed, and close contacts were not referred for testing unless symptomatic. The impact of this change can be seen in the daily series of symptomatic cases by epidemiological date. The peak for symptomatic cases was reached earlier on 28 December and remained relatively stable until 4 January.
Dublin accounted for more than a quarter (4,680) of all new cases for the week ending 15 January and it was the second week in a row that weekly cases in Dublin have fallen.
Cork was the county with the second highest number of new cases (1,985) for the week ending 15 January. No other counties had more than 1,000 weekly cases in the week ending 15 January, while Leitrim and Longford had fewer than 100 weekly cases.
Since the start of the pandemic, some 9,186 more females were diagnosed with COVID-19 than males.
Referrals and testing
There were 136,169 referrals for community testing where a valid reservation was recorded in the week ending 15 January.
Referrals for testing decreased in the last week, in particular among the 15-24 age groups, which decreased from 22,996 to 16,571 in the week ending 15 January.
Some 52% of referrals were from GPs in the week ending 15 January.
Type
Analysis on referral speciality type shows that while residential settings/institutions/schools’ referrals for testing have remained consistent for the last number of weeks, general COVID-19 testing has dropped by 26,802 while healthcare/essential worker testing has increased in the week ending 15 January.
Testing numbers cannot be directly compared with referrals for community testing; there is a significant number of tests completed in hospitals as well as a time lag between referral and test completion
Several referrals also do not result in a test being completed.
However, weekly testing numbers from HSE labs and hospitals show there were 168,831 tests completed in the week ending 15 January.
The positivity rate in the week ending 15 January was 15.4%, down from 22.4% the previous week.
Deaths
Since the start of the pandemic, the total number of people who have died due to COVID-19 in Ireland is 2,361, with a further 175 deaths cited as probable deaths linked to the virus.
The virus claimed the lives of 163 more men than women up to and including the week ending 15 January. It also continues to impact the older age groups the hardest, with 63% of all confirmed COVID-19 deaths to date in the 80 or older age group.