Digital Desk Staff
The reproductive rate of Covid-19 has dropped to between 0.7 and 0.9.
The Health Minister has told an Oireachtas committee that level 5 restrictions have helped the 14-day incidence rate of the virus fall to 228 cases per 100,000 population.
However, he says he is seriously concerned about the recent number of positive tests, with almost 11,000 reported over the past two weeks.
Minister Donnelly says the health service has also significantly expanded its testing "The capacity was increased recently from 100,000 tests a week to be able to do up to 120,000 tests per week."
"The HSE has now confirmed to me that the country's Covid-19 testing capacity has increased to 140,000 a week."
We're making good progress against Covid-19 thanks to an enormous collective effort. Over past 7 days (to midnight Mon) there were 4,337 new cases v 6,518 in previous 7 days. The 14-day incidence rate fell by 18% to 228 cases per 100,000. Some 322 new cases of Covid were detected
— Stephen Donnelly (@DonnellyStephen) November 3, 2020
He thanked the HSE staff for their work and being able to ramp up the number of weekly tests.
The Health Minister did tamper expectations however by saying that only 87,000 tests were carried out over the past seven days. It comes as the number of people in ICU has fallen for the second day in a row.
Mr Donnelly told the Oireachtas committee that level five restrictions have helped us buck the trends seen in other EU countries.
However, he says positive strides have been made in the past seven days
Regarding the reproductive rate of the virus or R number, Mr Donnelly said "As of this morning I am happy to share some new information regarding the R0. Last week it was at 1 and as of this morning it has now been recalculated to being between 0.7 and 0.9."
The positivity rate of the tests over the past week has decreased further as well to 4.7 per cent - below the 5 per cent benchmark, which the World Health Organisation says shows the spread of the disease is out of the control.
