There has been a “fairly radical shift” in the average age of people testing positive for COVID, according to the head of the HSE.

Vaccination is now open to anyone aged 40 and over with more than three million doses having been administered in Ireland.

On Monday night, the number of coronavirus patients in hospital fell to its lowest point since September 16th last year.

Meanwhile, the last week has seen a 20.5% drop in COVID patients in intensive care.

20/03/2021 Covid-19 Pandemic (Coronavirus), Ireland. Day 360 since start of lockdown. Day 80 of return to Level 5 restrictions. Pictured HSE Director General Paul Reid at the Vaccination center in the Helix Dublin this morning. Photograph: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie

He said there are also “very strong benefits” in terms of the cases loads in recent weeks – with younger people now making up the vast majority of cases.

“We are seeing a fairly radical shift in the percentage of cases below the age of 44,” he said. “The last 14 days, about 78% of cases are less than 44-years and under.

“Just about 7% of them are over the age of 55 and 2% over the age of 65 so we are seeing the benefits of the vaccination programme in terms of reducing that sickness and mortality.”

He said businesses reopening on Monday supported public health guidelines “really well” – but warned that it is essential they continue to do so due to concerns over the Delta variant, first identified in India.

“I think overall the guidance that was given to people in terms of opening from this weekend, by and large, was really well supported certainly from what I have seen around the place, with people still holding the public health measures, keeping social distance but being able to enjoy the outdoors with maybe a meal or a pint or something like that so it was good to see,” he said.

“But I think it is always about reinforcing for us how volatile this can always be – particularly with a variant like the Delta variant.

“The transmission levels can turn very quickly as we have seen in Limerick and as we have seen previously, not related to the variant but how it can turn very quickly.

“It is always about being on our guard but I think overall, great credit is due to business and enterprise for what they have done on their reopening.”

He said the recent spike in cases in Limerick was due to people letting down their guard and meeting up indoors.

“It is not just specific to Limerick,” he said. “We do have high case loads in different parts of the country - Dublin, Donegal, Limerick and Offaly - and it can change over a two-week period; you can have other counties emerge and others drop off.

“So, the general warning around the place from what we can see from what has happened in Limerick are increasing indoor mixing – so whether that is dinners, lunches, extended lunches, extended dinners, end of school parties, end of college parties, workplaces, maybe people dropping their guard in workplaces at break times, not wearing masks.

“Maybe people might be very complaint in the retail unit for example and then dropping their guard at breaktimes from work or to work.

“So, in some ways no surprises but that is the effect of a higher case load when the guard is dropped.”

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